


Dark of Knight

by Yug_Imagiro



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DC Elseworlds, Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: D&D DC, DC Otherwhen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 01:02:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12377673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yug_Imagiro/pseuds/Yug_Imagiro
Summary: What if everyone's favorite dour detective was a dour Kight in charge of a Keep overlooking Gotham by the Sea in a world of magic and mayhem?  This is what happens when a DC Elsewold comic lands on top of a AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide.





	Dark of Knight

Boilerplatemail Armor +2: This work of fiction is in no way connected to DC comics in any way. It is set in a sidereal universe that is based in the magic and monsters that are loosely a part of the AD&D universe. The respective properties are owned by their respective companies, and this transformative work is a blending of them in a way that should be immediately recognizable as non-canon to either properties. This fiction is provided free of charge, and can be shared freely as long as this notification is left in place. (If you paid for this, demand a refund!) And if you don’t like the way it is written, or how I dealt with any of the characters, then I can only tell you this... Go Write Your Own!

 

Dark of Knight

It was a dark and stormy knight that looked out the window of Stately Wayne Keep. The ancient castle that overlooked the kingdom of Gotham by the Sea had protected the city-state for generations, and its current owner and lord was one of the most powerful protectors the land had ever seen. Bruce Wayne the Dark Knight stood by the glass as the storm that mirrored his mood lashed against the massive windows of his study. The two blank faced agents stood behind him, their faces not only showing not only no emotion, but no features at all. The masks they wore were featureless pieces of seamless metal but they were obviously watching him. 

The female was the first to speak. Breaking the silence that had previously only been broken by the storm. “We have reason to believe that the Jester has escaped from the Plane of Archkam.” For a mask that was designed to reveal, her voice came out huskier than it actually was. The finders of truth, The Blanks ironically required anonymity, and the masks provided it along with the powers they conveyed. 

He had long joked with them the fact that he wished that he could just hide behind a mask as well. His armor was too well known, and his burning sword Azrael tended to announce his presence wherever he went. And even without it, his face was so well known that even the lowliest beggar from the market knew him by sight. All he had to do now was show his face and brigands surrendered rather then risk his wrath. That came with having his face on every copper coin minted in Gotham Copperwork’s main mint. He remembered Harvey’s double headed Brucey that he carried with him everywhere. The silly fool would make jokes about using it to make decisions for him. He missed the poor paladin who fell to his death at the hands of a black wyrm so many years ago. He missed all of his fallen... But that was just a part of the curse of command. Not the worse part, the worse part was not knowing the fate of those who simply never returned. 

He looked at his two most trusted Men-at-arms and reflected upon their current mission. Nearly fifty fishing boats of the hundreds of smallcraft of the bay had simply vanished, far more than could be explained by a wandering monster, or some random encounter. Some of the boats had been found without their crews, but they were not the ones that had the people running to the temples.

Fifteen fishermen had found themselves turned into mermen and hoist upon their own boat’s netting. He knew that it was the work of the Jester by the way they had been gutted and displayed for all the dockworkers to see. The Masks had found another ten fishing boats with their crews bodies with all of their organs missing littering the coast miles away, and no one knew why . Some of the fishermen had banded together in small fleets to watch each other, but that didn’t help, as some had seemingly vanished in a cloud of mist that covered the fleets. When the mists left the boats and their crews were gone without a trace, and without a sound. The Masks could see through any disguise, any enchantment, or subterfuge, but even they could not discern how the boats had vanished.

“Yes?”

His simple answer was one that they had come to expect from the Dark Knight. Lord Wayne had never been a talkative man, and the years had not been kind to him. From his older bother’s death, to his parent’s sacrifice for the kingdom, he had worn duty like a cape before he could hold a sword. “All of the bodies show signs of some kind of alchemical experimentation. Our research leads us to believe he is trying to make a Phylactery.”

“The fiend is trying to make a Soul Jar?” He moved quickly and with purpose to the bookcase beside his desk. A well worn tome was in his hand and open to one of the marked pages. “Father killed Carr Ya’ Din’s by destroying the metal case that she built to house her soul in. All we need to do is find out where he hides his.” His fingers flew through the pages. His father’s careful and concise script outlining the case in a manner that told him volumes. The words almost seemed to speak to him in his father’s voice.

The assassin currently known as Mime, and formerly known as Alice, looked at the new ‘toy’ her master had given her. It moved on its own and even tried to speak. She wished that someone here could. It would be nice if even one of them could, but she wasn’t allowed to speak, and the poor fish-man was quite unable to do so without air to pass through his lungs.

She looked at all of the other toys in her playroom. The sunken galley was filled with gold, and jewels from lands far and wind, and she had weapons, and armor that were slowly rusting in every corner of the room. The skeletal body of the captain of this ship was surrounded by the skulls of his crew in a strange parody of a tea party. The only open chair was currently being occupied by a starfish. She picked it up and watched it wither in her hand. When it died she let its body fall to the floor where it would be eaten by the myriad creatures that also called the ship home. Tremors in the wooden deck let her know that another creature was approaching.

“Hi Honey, I’m home. Did you miss me?” At her blank stare the man who’s head was covered in a magical bubble sighed. “You are beautiful beyond compare, but you are a terrible conversationalist. Am I right Bob?” He looked at the terrified fish-man who was beyond rational thought, and was obviously screaming to no effect. “Oh well... Well dear, I would ask you cook dinner, but since all we have is fish, and your cooking is always so...” He looked at the never changing expression on Mime’s fans and sighed. “There are times I wish I wasn’t so successful with your transformation dear.” 

So to did she... It had been ten years to the day since the fool had transformed her in to the monster she was now. She had pushed her little brother out of the way and the clay golem had grabbed her right before Jester finished the spell. Instead of an unstoppable juggernaut, he got an enigmatic assassin. Her reward was this constantly regenerating body, and his continuing existence. 

On the other hand it meant that she was the Jester’s slave in so many ways, and for longer than she wished to think about. She had seen his decent into madness only grow over the years. What had been simple pranks left behind after jobs, became deadly traps that killed in so many vile ways that were only funny to the Jester. When the poor man before her had been forced to kill his own son to save his daughter’s life she had just thought that that was another one of the Jester’s cruel pranks. To her horror she had been tragically wrong. Jester had turned the poor man into a litch with a potion made from the blood of his own son. That had been his worst prank to date, and there were so many to choose from. She looked at the poor man and couldn’t help think about the sacrifices he had tried to do to save his children.

It hadn’t saved the daughter either. He had tricked the man into killing her by switching the healing potion with another potion and having him give it to her. The act of killing his only living kin had been the last act that the poor fool had needed to commit for Jester to cast the spell. When he gave the fool the poison to kill himself the poor fool had actually smiled as he drank it. He thought that his suffering was over. He was now every bit the litch her master was, but he didn’t know it. He would never die, and would never know hunger or the ravages of time.

She wished that she could put him out of his misery, as she knew that if she killed herself it would kill him since his soul jar was stored in her hearthstone. But she could no more kill herself than she could harm him. Because if she killed herself, she would kill him, and that would kill the Jester. And sadly her curse meant that she could do nothing that would cause him any harm. Even if she could speak, she couldn’t even let someone know about the curses. She hated the Jester with every fiber of her being. And for good reason...

Jester looked at his domain and sighed. He had everything he could ever wish for. The love of his life was an obedient slave to his every whim. He could make her look just the way he wanted so that he never grew bored with her, and she was his most loyal assassin to boot. He lived in an impenetrable fortress, he had access to power, money, women... Well Mime... And that’s where his smile turned into a frown as he looked at the woman of his dreams. He had sought her hand when he was a simple carnival entertainer, but she had rebuffed him time and time again. His best friend, and his wife had been the mother and father of her and her accursed brother. 

Mack and Jenny had produced the most angelic child, and he had desired her ever since his return from his apprenticeship to the Mad Wizard of the north. She had become such a beautiful young woman, and his friend had noticed his desire. When Jack asked for their daughter’s hand in bonding, the none too subtle request to leave them alone had not been taken too well. 

In fact. He had been forced to kill his childhood friend, and his wife. He had already planned on killing them anyway, but they pushed their own demise up by a few years by refusing him. Sadly the children didn’t take it too well. He had to literally chase them to the end’s of the Earth to catch them again. But that too failed miserably when she, not her brother had become his slave. That’s when he went off the deep end. The lair he created out of the sunken wreck was too far down for most to reach without magic aid, and so he plotted for his bonding to the lovely Alice. Now he had her, but she couldn’t even react to his best work. So much so that he had tried everything he could to get even a grin on her beautiful face.

He leaned back in the ornate chair and thought about his next caper. It would kill them... ‘But they would dye laughing....’ He laughed at his own joke. After all, there wasn’t anyone else here that could appreciate his mind. He looked at Mime, and his smile once again vanished. ‘She could have...’

The darkness held deeper shadows that lurked upon rooftops in Gotham’s night. Two of them moved with a purpose that whispered of stealth. The first one was the larger of the two, but by no means the most dangerous of the two. Jason watched the tavern from a rooftop and pulled his cloak tighter to his body. Not to ward off the damp and the cold like his adopted mother was dealing with. The cold never bothered him anymore... Almost nothing ever bothered him anymore. He had pulled it back to hide in the shadows that had become his home ever since daylight had become his enemy. 

“Do you think he’s in there?” The silky voice whispered in his ear. She didn’t have to be so close, but he was sheltering her from the wind, and she like to be close. “It’s colder than a witch’s heart out here tonight.”

“Don’t let Zatanna hear you say that. And yes, he is...”

“That backwards bimbo is back in town?” He smiled at the interruption. One of the few constants in his life was Lady Wayne’s rivalry with Lord Wayne’s childhood friend.

“Yes, and you would have heard about it if you came to the meeting.” Speaking of constants...

“Bruce and I were busy.”

“I heard.” Again with the constants...

“Damn you and those ears.”

“Half the Manor heard.” He smiled as he knew that the blush she was sporting would help ward off the cold. If not in actuality, than at least spiritually. The Wayne - Kyle courtship had a public story, and the one he knew. Maybe in a hundred years he would commission a bard to write down the love story that saved both of their souls. Bane the ogre had bee responsible for the death of not just Selina’s father and mentor, but Lord Tomas Wayne, Bruce’s older brother. Thomas had raised Bruce after their parent’s death, and he had died protecting him from Bane’s wrath. Bruce Wayne had almost slipped into a darkness worse that his armor’s when they had been forced to team up to defeat Bane and his minions. She had nearly made a pact with a devilin to get the power she needed when he had burst into her lair. Their fight had been an epic test of skills, but they finally realized that they were on the same size when her dire jaguar wouldn’t attack him. The same cat that was currently burrowing her body into her mistress’ cloak. The tiny form was only a spell that Isis used to fit in places where her normally horse-sized body wouldn’t normally allow. Cat’s own affinity with mystic mass was in full effect as she jumped to the next roof, and landed far lighter than her lithe form should have.

His travel to the adjacent roof used a different kind of magic. The thin line snaked out and wrapped around the chimney nearest to the edge, and he walked across it as if he was taking a casual stroll. This rooftop offered a better view, but it came with the chance of being seen.

They didn’t need to worry as fisherman’s row was in full party mode tonight. The fleet had finally managed to bring in a haul without losing a single man, and they were celebrating their good fortune. To say that Platinum Paula’s Pub was probably the center of the festivities was not an exaggeration. 

The den of depravity was one of the few places in Gotham by the sea where you could sample just about anything of a mind-altering nature that was known to the world... and a few that were only rumors. Platinum Paula herself walked a fine line between the law and the criminal underworld. Her neutral stance on the happenings in her city had not won her a lot of friends, but her ability to keep order in her pub had won the Wayne’s respect. And the tips she had sent to them had never been wrong. This one had even come free of charge. It never paid to hut on of Paula’s girls. A lesson that Clown would soon be learning the hard... “Hey guys, why are you hiding up here?” The voice whispering from a point above them made all three of them look up to see a pair of pale glowing eyes looking back at them. 

“Corona, you know that if we can see you, so can they?”

“Oh, sorry.” The visibly glowing eyes vanished, and in their place was a floating elf. 

“I doubt you could ever be sorry.”

“I can too!” The voice was full of pout, but Crow could tell that she was smiling, even in the dark, because she was never not smiling.

“Why are you here?” Crow already knew why she was here, but he had to ask anyway.

“Because you said you were going to be busy tonight.”

“And you decided to follow me?”

“No, I actually tried to find Pastyface on my own.” Her habit of misnaming her enemies was an effective combat strategy, but it tended to get old fast. She meant Clown of course, but her tracking skills were at such a low...

“This is a trap.”

Cat looked up at him like he had been looking at Corona. “Well duh! But to reverse a trap you need to know where it is. Right Harlequin?” Her only answer was an arrow that stopped five inched from her face. “Oh come on now, didn’t I teach you better than that?”

This time the masked assassin did step out from the shadows. She stood on the roof of the building next to them and bowed. The frowning mask covered her face, but Crow could see the elf practically shake in her fury. The former thief had at one time trained some of the best thieves in Gotham, but most of them had followed her into the light when she married Lord Wayne. Her Catpaws had become some of the Dark Knight’s best spies, but not all of them.

Crow was about to leap across when Corona let loose a burst of her Starfire magic. The bolt struck the smiling visage that leapt out at him. The burst of flame didn’t even slow the assassin down as the elf’s sword swung his way. 

Crow parried the blow with his gauntlet, and leapt back far enough to draw his own sword without hitting anyone he cared about.

Cat’s hands drew complex patterns in the air and wisps of energy flowed around her. The second arrow to fly her way was covered in azure flame and she knew that she need to be elsewhere when that arrow hit. Soon she was flying across the breezeway in a manner that was both controlled, and chaotic. She dodged the third and forth arrows as she landed on the ledge. The woman facing her took the bow in her hands and pulled it apart at the grip as if it were clay. The string glowed with an unhealthy light that Cat knew did not bode well for anyone it touched.  
Isis reverted to her normal size and climbed higher on the roof. Cat looked at the woman before her and didn’t dare take her eyes off of her. Jema had been one of her best students, and one of her most effective illusionists. She had already cast a delving spell to look for any magic that might be at work, but the amount of magic in the area made the spell almost useless. Well then, there was a way around that.

Crow was about to swing his sword when he heard his mother start to utter the words he dreaded. He leapt into the air, and suddenly changed directions as he grabbed a surprised Corona and made for the ground. Their landing amongst the partying sailors, needless to say was, something of a surprise that didn’t go unremarked upon. Especially since they appeared as they truly were. The half naked, tattooed, and pierced, succubus they wouldn’t have minded... The near skeletal vampire that held her... Over fifty men and women were in the street when they landed. Only three remained when he set her down on the ground. Crow, Corona, and of course Clown. 

Clown was standing in two deep imprints where he had landed, and he had both of his oversized butcher’s knives out. He was in a defensive pose, and he was obviously waiting for them to make the first move. The painted on grin he wore on his mask was not reflected in his grim visage. Crow didn’t need the spell’s revealing glow to tell him about those blades. He knew from painful past dealing with the goon, that one of those blades had an enchantment against good, and the other ironically had a protection against evil. That it didn’t burn Clown’s hand meant that either he was protected against his own blade, or he didn’t view himself as evil. 

Cat and Isis landed beside them and her normally invisible armor was glowing in the fae light that came with the spell she was using. She wasn’t the only one glowing either. Harlequin’s featherfall cloak made her visible in the darkness, but she wouldn’t remain that way once she landed. 

“They are going to change into their beast forms if we let them get close enough.”

“Yes, but they are so bad at it that they would do better just staying in their elven forms.”

“I hear that teacher. Doesn’t that say something about your skills as a teacher?”

“Is that supposed to be a joke Clown? I guess you’re right, it says I can’t always pick good students.” The jibe was rewarded with two more arrows from his sister’s bow. 

Fired while she was still falling, they relied more on luck than skill, and as Crow pulled the one arrow that hit his shoulder out he smiled as the wound healed shut almost as fast as he removed it. “A little high?” He felt the burning sensation for a few seconds before his undead body absorbed the poison. “Black root, nice choice. Quick acting, and painful. Mother, Switch!” He lunged at the still falling elf while Cat and Isis split up and flanked Clown.

He grabbed the elf by the neck and held her off the ground and used his dominate ability to thrall her. She was fighting it, and her legs pulled back to kick him, but she was embraced by the limbs of Corona. In her loving embrace, the elf was no match. He watched a s Corona slowly drained the vitality out of the elf leaving her as weak as a kitten.

Meanwhile, Cat pounced. Clown had been expecting Crow, so he had his blades switched. He was trying to get a moment to switch them, but the two of them were attacking him from both directions. Pain, the evil blade managed to hit the accursed cat, but wound wasn’t deep. He had Panic up to block the sorceress when the blade hit him. He had never even sensed the man behind him. The pain was like nothing he had ever felt before. His inside were burring up as he fell to the ground. He spun around to face the new attacker and wasn’t surprised to the Dark Knight. He went into guard position and froze. Sweet words whispered into his mind that he should stay where he was. He tried to move, but found that his body was not responding. The fire in his back was creeping up his spine, and across his back. It hurt, but not as much as he thought it should. Lord Wayne walked right up to him and knocked the two blades out of his numb hands. How someone that size could move so quietly without magic was beyond the poor elf, but he noticed the glowing runes that were spreading across his body in the reflection from a window on the other side of the street.

Inside his head he remembered something. Jester siting down in their lair and telling him a joke. A joke he wanted him to tell to... Lord Wayne... Why would he had told him a joke to tell to... Clown’s eyes shot wide open as Lord Wayne approached him. Jester knew! He knew that they would get caught. The Dark Knight was saying something to him... ‘Where was the Jester hiding?’

Clown started laughing. Jester knew how much they had hated the Waynes for taking Cat away from them, and making the rest to the Catspaws his spies. They had been left out once again. Jester had given them everything they had ever wanted. Coins, gems, women, men, their own lair... Everything...but Cat. So when Jester said that he could give them a revenge against the Dark Knight that would make them famous, they jumped at it. “Do you want to hear a joke?” 

“What?”

“Knock, knock!”

“Come in.” Even with his helm down, Clown could tell that the man looked smug.

Clown looked at Lord Wayne and smiled. “Nicely played, but if you want the clue...”

Lord Wayne nodded. He looked at Crow and Corona first. “Will you quit playing.”

The two in question were still holding a compliant Harlequin. Crow finally noticed what Corona had been doing when he spotted the assassin’s clothing on the ground. “Corona!”

“Sorry, I was getting bored.” If she was sorry, she didn’t look it. She noticed the looks she was getting. “It’s my nature!”

Clown couldn’t see what was going on, but knowing the succubus’ proclivities, he didn’t have to guess. “Just, be gentle.”

“I always am... unless they don’t want me to be.”

Knowing that that was about as good an answer as he was going to get he repeated him self. “Knock, Knock!”

Crow decided to play along. “Who’d there?”

“Boo”

“Boo Who?”

Clown felt the connection of the final part of the spell. All that was left was to say the command words. “Don’t cry, this won’t hurt me a bit!” Clown exploded in a titanic burst of flame... That was dispelled almost as fast. The glyphs that covered his body channeled the magical energy internally, so that the body that hit the ground was little more than a cinder. 

Crow looked at the body in Corona’s arms. The almost child-like elf was now covered in the featherfall cloak, but little else. “Why didn’t she explode; did you kill her?”

“No, she’s unharmed, I just drained it of all of its magic and most of its other energies.” The succubus was back in her dark elf appearance as she ran her finger’s through the broken dool’s hair. “Besides, as you well know, my victims have to be willing victims. And since this little thing is a construct...” Everyone gathered around her. “...no soul.” Everyone looked at the burnt body behind them.

“I was wondering how they let themselves get caught so easily.” The guardsmen came out of the shadows at lord Wayne’s command, and began searching the street for clues. No clue was found; and in their preoccupation with the search of the street no one noticed the red and black night phoenix with the white face that flew away from a building five blocks away. 

Inside Clown and Harlequin’s lair a very unexploded Clown pulled the magic goggles off of his face. “Well that was a bust.”

“More of a Bang, actually.” Jester was sitting in a very expensive chair that they had stolen long ago, and his eyes had a far away gaze. “Too bad... Those dolls were so much fun to make!”

Clown took one look and he knew that their boss was using Mime’s eyes to see with, but he didn’t dare try anything. The man had a spooky habit of popping back at the wrong time. Instead he looked over at his sister. Her hands were moving slowly but he knew that she was out of it from her run in with that mind witch. If Jester noticed her condition she would be in for a bad time. He would have to distract him from ‘Playing’ with his sister. “It wasn’t like we didn’t plan on them being disposable, but why did you want me to try and blow up the Dark Knight and crew? I thought you wanted him alive.” 

If he noticed the distraction, he didn’t show it; but his smile lit up in a fiendish way. “Sauce for the Bat.” The Wayne’s Coat of Arms had a stylized bat in the center, but Lord Wayne never wanted to be called The Bat Man. So Jester made a habit of calling him that on every occasion he could. He often said that he just liked the sound of it. He got up and moved towards the door. “Oh one more thing. The fishermen that I turned into Goons are starting to stack up, so do please use them. Otherwise I will just feed them to the fishies... Like I might do to Harlequin if she doesn’t wake up!”

The female elf shot up and drew her sword in one fluid motion. Only the sword had been switched with a fish shaped fake blade. The elf’s emotional control had never been the best, and this joke was one too many. The fish flew unerringly towards Jester’s chest where the blade pierced his chest and stuck out his back. He simply looked down and laughed as he reach down and pulled the ‘blade’ out. The scales acted like a rasp, and bits of flesh, and bone were pulled out with the blade. The hole in is chest simply sealed itself after he finished pulling the blade out. “Oh I guess I deserved that... But I do get the POINT!” He laughed as he walked out of the lair, not through the door, but through a solid wall.

Clown rushed over to Harlequin’s side and grabbed his now shaking sister. “Are you okay?” 

“No, and I not sure know who scares me more... Our boss, or that woman.” She didn’t dare tell her brother ‘Why’ she was scared of Corona. She feared Jester for the pain he would bring her, but she feared the pleasure that she had felt even more.

Platinum Paula looked out at the devastation that had befallen the street in front of her pub. She put down her scrying ball, and moved over to the bar. A complex hand gesture later and the bar opened up to reveal a magic device that had not been invented yet. It shouldn’t exist for hundreds of years, but there it was. A marvel of modern magic in the time she came from, it was unfathomable to the mages of this era. She accessed the records and found the entries on Jester and his minions. So much knowledge had been lost during the Infinity Crisis that would happen in a hundred years that she, and others, had been tasked to go back in time and re-record history. This looked like a job that the Dark Night would handle with no.... She leaned heavily on the bar, and wished once again that she could warn the people in the here and now about what was going to happen. She could only help if she could find the information locally. There was no way she could come across this piece of information without tipping her cowl.

It was three day after the Brawl by the Bay, as the local Bards were calling it, when the chief Guardsman Jim Gordon received a summons. His daughter the Cleric know as Oracle came with him to make heads or tails out of the strange crop that had sprung up in one of the local farmer’s fields. From a distance everything looked a normal crop of corn until they started walking through the rows and noticed the smell. It smelled good, but he knew that that was not always a good thing. She ran her hand over the nearest stalk, and it stared to glow an angry red.

“It’s cursed.”

“Yes, that’s why they called us out here. One bite turned the farmer’s entire family into pigs, and they have been eating almost nonstop.” He pointed to a pile of timber and reeds. “That used to be their house.”

“They should have built it out of brick.” She muttered. The two guardsmen with them smiled politely, but didn’t laugh. They knew better. The last guardsman to make that mistake was still cleaning out the guard stables. Her father was as serious as they came. 

“They would have smashed that too.” His trademark frown never wavered.

She looked over to wink at the guardsmen. “Yes, but it would have been easier for me to read.” She touched the soiled reeds and thatch that had once been the roof. Her hand glowed for a moment and she pointed of towards the forest. “They went that way, and they are not alone. I sense wolves.”

“Oh this just gets better, and better.” They spotted the pigs as they ran out of the forest, but they were not alone. Each massive pig had at least three dire wolves following behind. It was clear that the pigs sought the dubious safety of the ruined house, but whether it was a memory from their former lives, or simple flight he didn’t know. What he did know was the fact that four over oversized pigs were leading fifteen massive wolves. He drew his sword as Oracle readied her staff; their metal rings making a strangely peaceful sound next to the baying of the wolves. Both weapons were blessed, only hers was able to channel her energy. His had a different nature.

The pigs passed them without incident, but they knew the wolves would not be so accommodating. The arcane words were barely out of her mouth when the ground below the wolves exploded upwards. One was stunned, but the others quickly got back on their feet and resumed their advance. The startled wolves may have slowed to a walk but didn’t stop as they changed their focus to the four humans standing between them and their prey.

The two guardsmen drew their crossbows and fired off heavy bolts into the lead wolves. One stumbled and fell, but the other simply jumped out of the way. They reloaded as Oracle readied her spell. They knew they wouldn’t get another shot, but the reloading spike on the end of their crossbows would make short work of any normal beast, and the silver that tipped them meant that they would work equally well against some magical creatures. Gordon stood on the other side of his daughter, but he knew they would die rather than to let harm befall her. Not because of him, but because she was the guard’s healer.

A healer she might be now, but a protector was what she born to be. The Holy Word left her mouth and the wolves that hadn’t taken her warning suffered the full effects of her patron god’s gift. Dire wolves might be tougher, smarter, and more cunning than their mundane cousins, but that intelligence also told them that when five of their pack suddenly died, and they all were hit with lightning, then this prey was not worth the effort. The nine survivors backed off and moved back into the forest. 

The pigs were cowering inside the wrecked farmhouse, and were very skittish when Gordon entered the ruins. The father pig was standing in front of his family, and James could sympathize. “Don’t worry. We aren’t here to hurt you. My daughter is going to lift the curse... KORD’S NORDS!” The father pig charged him. He dropped his sword and punched the horse-sized pig on the top of its head. The pig’s momentum carried him on a couple of steps, but he was knocked out before he hit the ground. Laughter form behind him almost made him turn around. “Yes, dearest darling child of my loins?”

The amount of sarcasm in his voice didn’t deter her for a moment. “You enjoyed that!”

“Yes, I did. If figured that if I did do him any lasting harm, you would have fixed it when you turned him back.” He looked at his sword. He didn’t know if the man was innocent, and if he wasn’t then the sword would have done more harm than good. The blessed blade wouldn’t harm an innocent, but it would smite anyone it viewed as evil. And since it was made by none other than Thomas Wayne Sr., that was a rather liberal definition. Times like this, a blessed weapon might as well be cursed. “And this way he will only be a pig farmer, not a farmer’s pig.”

“Did you just tell a joke?” She smiled at the rare bit of levity in he father’s demeanor.

“No, and if either of you two are snickering, you will be joining Squire Jones in the stables.” He looked at the two men behind them and grimaced.

“No sir, it was just a cough.” The none too subtle tap on his chest only punctuating Bullock’s lack of decorum. The man may be uncouth, and rude, but he was Gordon’s best tracker. 

“Good. Now lets get these folk back to their hum drums lives, and get back to town.”

 

The room was a mess, and the bed was worse. Connie woke to the feeling of someone standing in the way of the sunlight that should have been warming her face. “The first question I have is why are you here?”

“And the second?” The masked face of Victor the Blank, often referred to as Blank One to the seedy underworld both of them were accustomed to dealing with, stared (If one could call it that.) Back at her from her windowsill.

She laughed at the distraction. “Why do wear that here? I know damn well who you are.” She pouted a little. “Are you scared of being seen in a lady’s bedroom?” 

He was too well trained to rise to her bait. “The mask is to protect me not from you, but those who would spy on you. Did you know that you have a scyring spell in just about every room in this house. I dispelled them, but a girl like you should take better care of herself.”

“Oh but I do. Those spells were put there by a friend of mine. He watches out for me, and...” She noticed him pull a small mirror out of his pocket. “What?”

He raised his hand to forestall the question as he activated the communication spell charm. “Call off the raid.... No you can’t go in anyway, he’s innocent... Okay, not guilty.” As he put it away Connie tried to imagine the guardsmen trying to force their way into Tinker’s Toy Shop with out an invitation. It wouldn’t be pretty.

“You let him watch you?”

“He doesn’t watch me silly. She pointed to the dolls on the wall. He likes my toys.”

“Speaking of witches, your two bodyguards seem to be asleep at the job.”

She poked the two lumps beside her and she was rewarded with a tickle to her foot. She managed to stifle an unseemly giggle. Point and Ponder sat up from under the sheets with twin yawns that showed off all of their assets. And since none of them were wearing a stitch of clothing, that meant all of them. Each of the twins was covered in tattoos and muscle in equal measure. 

“We”

“knew” Even with the mask, they could tell he was rolling his eyes.

“you”

“were” Connie smothered another giggle as the two began their usual banter barrage.

“there”

“but”

“since” Victor pulled back his hood.

“you” 

“weren’t” 

“attacking” Victor stood up.

“we” 

“figured” 

“it” Victor put his hand on the pommel of his sword.

“was as social visit.” Point finished in a rush. She also pulled out one of their wands from under her pillow. 

“Truth be told...” He stopped once more for the giggles from Connie to subside. “This is not a social visit.”

“You’re right; you’re overdressed for that.” Connie stood up and moved over to her desk, not even bothering to grab a robe. A glass bottle was only marginally covering some papers that she had strewn about. The glass bottle, and its soon to be emptied contents, almost magically appeared in her hand. The topmost piece of paper was in her hand almost as fast. “You are looking into the Fishmen Fiasco, right?”

“And since it’s a puzzle...” The gesture he made with his hands made up for the lack of facial expression.

“You brought it to Connie Nundrum, Adventurer, Author, and Academic... Not in that order.” Her emerald eyes twinkled with the light of an irreverent schoolchild more than the wicked smart problem solver for hire that she had become after her father’s death. A death that came at the hands of, a then Man-at-arms, Victor Charles De Sage.

“Yes, mostly because you have contacts we lack.” The two bodyguards moved to flank their much taller boss/girlfriend/big sister. Each one gave him the protective look a cat would give a rival. He smiled under his mask. His vows protected her far more then they would have been able to.

She put on her Work face, and she might as well have been wearing a fine robe for all she cared. She climbed up the ladder into her loft’s storage area, and pulled out a massive atlas. She tossed it down to Point who tossed it to Ponder. She jumped off the ledge and into Victor’s arms. He set her down just as gently as he caught her. And she rewarded him with yet another pout. “You are enough to make a girl feel unwanted.” 

Point and Ponder laughed behind him, and he just shrugged. “You know better.” He followed her over to the table where Ponder had opened the atlas up to the local map and Connie pointed to the town. “What?”

“He doesn’t have a base in town, or in the country, or anywhere on land.”

“How did you find that out.”

“The Thief’s Guild owed me a favor or ten. None of their cutpurses wound up with a case of the Deads, so I can deduce that Jester had found another place to pounce from. And since all the kidnapings took place on the sea...”

“We checked the islands, and any ship we could find.”

“No... Not on the sea.” She smiled and sat back in her chair. The smug look on her face was catlike.

“Under.”

“Where else could you hide your most treasured riches.” Her legs parted as if to emphasize her point.

“Darling, I’m old enough to be your...”

“Father? Yes, dear darling dad does keep getting between us.”

“Yes, but I’m the...”She silenced him with one finger to his lips... Well where his lis should be under his mask.

“The man that killed my father. My abusive, controlling, and manipulative, bastard of a father. He may have made me the woman I am today. But it wasn’t because of who he was, or what he did for me, but what he did TO me.”

“Yes, and I swore to protect you. I swore to...” This time it was his turn to interrupt himself. “I have a job to do.” With that he got up and jumped out the window. She didn’t even bother to look out. She knew that the three story fall was a minor feet for him. His mask made him a hero, but he had been a hero to her from the first time they met.

Point and Ponder brought her a robe, and she knew that it wasn’t the cool morning air that made her shiver. “So” “Boss” “what’s” “our” “next” “move?” Their telepathic bond was so strong that they were practically one. She had ‘recruited’ them from a slaver that she had ‘retired’ years ago. They had been bred to be sex slaves and when she freed them they followed her from then on. They were her best friends, her adopted sisters, her protectors, and occasional lovers. But didn’t need any of those connections to see that the one man that held her heart had just jumped out of a window rather than admit his feelings for her. 

 

The balding man holding the serving tray looked up as his Lord entered the dinning room. “An early dinner sir?”

“Yes Alfred. We’re going to have a war council meeting, so we’ll need extra servings. Gordon is bringing guests.”

“Bullock?” The only emotion the batman showed was to raise one eyebrow.

“Exactly.”

“Swear sir, that man must be part dwarf.”

In one of the rare instances of brevity in his day, he smiled. “No, more like part dragon.” 

Bruce and Selina both quietly laughed as he simply raised the same eyebrow and replied “Indeed!” They and the rest of the Wayne family knew Alfred’s secret, but they never abused the Wayne/Copperworth relationship the way his older brother had. “Shall I prepare the usual fatted bison?”

Bruce smiled. Alfred had always been one of the few beings to make him smile. Even as a child when his brother’s harsh training had nearly broken him, Alfred had been there to blunt the pain and Thomas’ wrath at his little brother’s ‘failings’. It had been Alfred that had explained the difference between ‘Duty’ and ‘Obsession’ at Thomas’ funeral in a way that made all of his anger at his brother’s death turn into the ember of the flame of duty instead of the flames of revenge that would have consumed him the same way it had his brother. He knew that the gold dragon hiding inside the nondescript human form before him had cried his own tears at what he viewed as his failure to properly train Thomas, but Alfred had also taught the Waynes the value of the ‘Long over the Short’ view of time that dragons had.

Alfred looked at his lord and smiled. The boy was every bit his grandfather’s son. He wore his duty like armor, and his honor like a shield; if only he wouldn’t wear his pain like a second skin... But pain was the seed of strength, and the boy had more than enough to plant the Kingdom over. 

Lord and Lady Wayne sat at the head of the round table with Dick and Helena sitting beside their mother. On Lord Wayne’s side sat an empty chair then the two Blanks with their respective masks on the table before them. Chief Guardsman Gordon and his daughter sat beside them with Guardsman Bullock at the end of the table furthest from the Waynes. There were five empty chairs that would not be filled tonight, for this was a war council, not a town meeting.

“So what do we know, and what don’t we know?”

The empty chair was the first to speak. Lucius Fox’s voice seemed to fill the room, but emanate from the chair. “Well I would love to say that my research found a cure, but even a polymorph spell didn’t change them back. In fact the curse seems to be designed to prevent just that attempt. As you can see, or rather, can’t. I have been trying unsuccessfully to dispel the invisibility, but each attempt has had... other effects.”

Vic pointed at the mask in front of him. “I can see past the spell, but as you can see we took our masks off for Lucius’ sake.”

“And for that, I am grateful. The form I’m in now is more or less humanoid, but some of them were too strange to describe.”

“Well keep us appraised on your progress. Vic, did your sources reveal anything?”

Victor had to stop himself from sipping the wine before Lord Wayne spoke, and that was the only thing that saved him from spitting the fine vintage all over the table. He notched an eye at his lord and wondered if he had been scrying on him. He knew that that was one of the mask’s abilities, but he never used it unless it was an emergency. “Yes, your hunch that morally ambiguous people might be useful paid off. After talking to a certain friend of mine, I talked to some of the smugglers we rounded up, and after I managed to calm them down and promise not to kill them, they were most cooperative. It seems that a patch of sea to our south seems to swallow ships without a trace if they sail at night.”

“You’re lucky. I got to talk to Cobblepot.” 

At this Helena perked up. “How is that old pirate? Is his bar still the den of inequity it always was?” Her dealings with the semi-legit ‘Pirate King’ known as the Peregrine ran one of the biggest floating casinos ever built by dwarven hands were rather strange. On the one hand he had been a rather violent pirate, on the other he had rescued not just Helena but dozens of children from a pirate cult. Bruce swore that one of these days he would get her to tell him the whole story, but so far she wouldn’t.

“Your uncle says “Hi” but he also hasn’t learned anything of importance, except that Captain Croc’s ship isn’t where it used to be.”

“Then where is it?”

“That is a good question.”

“Do we have any leads?”

“Only one.

 

On a misty isle, where no island had ever been, sat a volcanic peak that never knew lava. A pink night phoenix flew over the rim and down into the crater. Inside was a massive lake, and in the middle of the lake was the wreck of the Snapdragon, Captain Crocks famous vessel. Only one of the four masts was still standing, and it barely peeked out of the water. The bird landed on the mast and transformed into a fish that flopped into the water. The fish swam into one of the gun ports where it found itself inside an air bubble. After changing into a monkey, the former fish/bird jumped upon the shoulder of the masked woman sitting on a cushion. Harlequin picked up the animal which promptly became a taira that she put on her head. The view of what the animal had seen was replayed back to her in full color and sound. Her headband’s enchantment allowed her to spy on anyone the animals could reach. The problem was the fact that anti-magic, and anti scyring spells tended to be blind spots. Wayne tower happened to be one of the biggest blind spots that she had ever seen. She had told the others that she was spying on Lord Wayne’s men, but she was really looking for the night elf that had bewitched her. She had to kill that woman before she lost her nerve. If Jester had spotted any sign of weakness, she would have found herself a part of his experiments. Of all the deaths she could think of, and she had committed some rather inventive ones, that was one fate she did not wish to experience.

 

A shadow shifted in the rim of the crater. In a second it was gone, but it did not leave unnoticed. Jester’s face and one of his hand phased out of the rock touched the spot where the shadow had been. The spell he cast let him know who, and when, but he still didn’t know why an outer plane creature like that had visited his little piece of Elysium. Maybe he had an admirer, or maybe it was that undead freak’s little succubus strumpet. Either way, he need to make sure that he had a welcome party for who ever showed up. And he thought with a grin that had she seen it she would have fled right away... a suitable punishment for a certain someone that led her straight here.

 

Lord Wayne and his daughter were standing on the top of the keep’s highest tower when the shadow of a batlike creature passed in front of the moon. They knew that any resemblance to a bat was purely intentional. The form landed on the edge of the combing and reformed into Corona. “Well?”

“The charts didn’t show an island there, and it’s too old to be a new one. I don’t know how he did it, but he moved an entire island. The wreck inside the lake is a pirate warship. Orc design, but it is mostly intact inside. Anyone that want to get in needs some way to breathe under water unless they have some hidden passage.”

“Were you spotted? Helena seemed to sense the answer, but she needed confirmation.

“Of course. You asked me to be sloppy, and I stayed long afer I needed to. I’m sure that I was spotted.”

“Good”

“Father you know that this is a trap.”

“Yes, of course it is. Your point?”

“Jester is not stupid by any means. If he knows that we are coming, then he knows that we know it’s a trap. And since he knows that we know that he knows, then he will have a bunch of traps. Ones we’re supposed to see, and ones we’re not.”

“You get that from your father, or mother?” Corona watched the byplay.

“A bit of both.” She pulled her cowl in to protect herself from the cold. “But I didn’t get their love of cold places. Couldn’t we go inside?”

Corona looked at the doorway and shuddered. She was a creature of the night, and ironically here was a human inviting her in. If it hadn’t of been for Crow she probably would have taken them up on their offer. “You can, but I have my reasons for staying out here.”

Lord Wayne looked at the succubus and tilted his head. “Your reason is a laudable one, but if you don’t want to tell him, there is something you should know.”

“What is that?”

“He already knows.” Her glowing eyes left a streak as she flew off at high speed. He wished that he had a way to record peoples faces when they looked like that. He would have to talk to Lucius about creating a spell or item that could.

“Father, I thought that you swore to not interfere in his life after he started working with mother?”

“I didn’t tell her that he loved her. Just that they were as obvious to us as they were oblivious to each other. Besides, I could have been interfering in HER life.”

She laughed. She loved her adopted big brother; but as smart as he was, he could be clueless about some things. “When did you get so smart?”

“Don’t blame it on me. Alfred was the first to see it after all. What about you?”

She pulled the cloak tighter around her armored frame. “She doesn’t even notice me.”

“Yes she does. She is also trying very hard to keep her feelings hidden from herself.”

“You won’t tell her?”

“I swear.” He saw the look she was giving him but he only smiled instead of wilting. “Okay, not even a hint.”

“Thank you father.” At that she turned and went back inside to the comforting warmth of the hearth. Bruce Wayne father, and Lord protector sometimes had to walk a narrow path, but he knew that those that looked to him for protection saw strength, and those that sought to oppose him felt it. The Wayne name was built on it, and his family honor demanded that it never be the other way around.

He walked into his study and saw a very familiar familiar resting next to the fireplace. “Hello Isis, where is your mistress?” The cat looked up to the top most rack of books, and there sat a very engrossed Selena Wayne. “Darling?” He noticed the book that was easily three times thicker than just about any book in the library.

“Homunculi in the Army of Horus” 

“A little light reading?”

“Ugh.. It’s as dense as Alfred’s porridge.” Dense was a complement to his signature breakfast porridge, but he could appreciate the reference when he climbed up to her level and took a look over her shoulder. 

“I see what you mean. This is your arena, what can you tell me?”

“Those kids that Jester used for his experiment. Renee found out that they used to be the son and daughter of one Jacob Whaler. They were lost at sea about fifteen days ago.”

“Yes, I remember from the meeting. You’re going somewhere with this.”

“King Horus of the Northern kingdom used homunculi as foot soldiers his army, but the bodies came from his enemy’s fallen as well as his own.”

“Oh, I think see where you are going. Any cleric that raises one of them should be able to... What?”

“You can’t raise them. Their souls were destroyed in the process of creating the life stone that powers a homunclus. The stone is the new home for the soul, but it is forever bound to it.”

“So what do you think happened to these kids?”

“Jester probably used one or both for the blood need for the poison that turned him into a litch. We haven’t found too many of his victims, we should examine these two bodies more carefully.

 

The morgue in the tower’s dungeon was kept cold on purpose, and Victor Freeze and his wife kept their part even colder. They were looking over the bodies when the scrying mirror’s glow caught their attention. “Nora, would you get that?”

“Sure, but wait for me before you start that exam. The last one disintegrated too fast for me to do an analysis.”

Her husband smiled and held up his hands. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for his wife, and she knew it.

“Lord Wayne, Lady Wayne, as you can see one of the bodies did not survive the exam, but we still have one avenue that we haven tried.” The Waynes stood on the other end of the mirror, and Victor smiled at his childhood friend. Bruce had asked to come down here to watch but after what happened to Professor. Fox he had forbidden his friend from being anywhere near the exam or even the morgue.

“Are you two sure it’s safe? We could have you use one of Lucius’ metal golems?”

“Bruce, you know I hate those things. It like wearing a suit of armor that doesn’t want to move. My dexterity would go so far down I might as well be made of ice.”

“Don’t say that Victor. Jester has outdone himself this time. Lucius is still not quite himself. I don’t want anything to happen to you two.”

“Yes Nora, I can’t be the only gorgeous brain around here. These men won’t know what to do with out us.”

Nora’s laughter was infectious and Victor joined Bruce and Helena.

Bruce brought them back to the moment with the obvious question. “What are you going to do?”

“We are going to use alchemical ice to inhibit the spell that is caused the last body to fall apart.”

“Alchemical Ice, isn’t that dangerous?” They all knew that the magical liquid wasn’t like normal ice. It came from the outer plane of elemental ice, and only the alchemical treatment kept it from freezing the very air in the room. Even its liquid nature made it dangerous to be around. It was far too easy for the viscous fluid to corrupt its containers and freeze anything around them. The only limiting factor was that amount of time the stuff could exist on another plane. The more you had, the longer it could last before phasing back. But in that time it could do a lot of damage. 

Every ounce of Victor’s normally jovial nature disappeared in an instant. “Very.” That’s why this section of the dungeon was sealed off. If this goes south, I want you to have this section cast into another plane. There’s enough here to freeze the lab for months, if not years.”

“What about you two?”

Cat held back a gasp. “If anything goes wrong, then why are both of you in there?”

Nora looked at her friend and smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile. “If one of you was facing this, wouldn’t the other...”

“You’re right.” She nodded and gripped her husband’s hand.

“Well, let’s begin, and hope we don’t make a mistake.” Victor moved over to the tank that held the silver liquid, and its spigot. The tray that held the body of the young woman was already covered in a light frost, as was the body. He moved the tray under the spigot and opened the valve. As the silver liquid touched the body it started to immediately crystalize into a crystal statue of the woman. Her body slowly became transparent until he could see right trough her corpse. “Nora, the phase glove.” She brought him the slick black glove and helped him put it on. Once on, his hand became indistinct.

“What is it?”

“Look there, where her heart should be. And up where her brain should be. I’m going to grab the one in her brain and see if I can’t pull it out.”

“Dear, I love you but that sounds phenomenally stupid.”

“We have one chance at this, or her killer will do this to someone else.”

The concern in Lord Wayne’s voice was plainly evident. “Victor. I would rather not sacrifice you on that chance.”

“Thank you Bruce, but this is one order I need to ignore. You of all people should understand.”

“I do, but I don’t have to like it.”

“Neither do I. Here goes.” He reached in with the glove and his hand passed right through the woman’s head like it was smoke. When he had his hand around the item he felt the edges of something touch the glove. “What the?” He yanked his hand back with the item in it. It was a flat black cube with a glowing blue rune on each face. “Well that didn’t seem too...”

The first warning was the numbing feeling that started in his hand, then his arm. The last this he was able to consciously do was look at his wife. The startled look on his face was her only warning as to what was happening to her husband. She looked at the runes on the cube in his hand and knew what had happened, but she knew that the Waynes would not be able to see it.

“I love you!” She grabbed the cube out of his hand and spun around. She had just enough time to show the Waynes the cube before she too was turned into an ice statue like her husband.

Lord Wayne watched one of his oldest friends in the world, and his wife, die in front of him, and there was nothing he could do about it but write down the glowing rune that had claimed their lives. He then ran after his wife as she plunged headlong down the stairs towards the dungeon.

The door to the dungeon was already starting to frost over when they were withing view. It was that frost that had stopped her from opening the door. Her good friends might have been saved if they could have been rescued and brought to a cleric to be raised, but if she went in there she risked exposing the entire keep. “What do we do?”

“Alfred is already on it, but we need to get behind the line.” They move back to the stairs and watched as the air itself seemed to glow in front of them. Alfred had once told a very young Bruce Wayne that time and space could be shuffled like a deck of cards. He hadn’t understood until the day that Alfred made an entire wing of the keep transform into a completely different room. The room had been exchanged with a room from an abandoned castle from an outer plane estate of Alfred’s so he hadn’t stolen the room, only switched out a burned out room that Thomas Jr had just destroyed with one that hadn’t been used in centuries.

The glowing filled the corridor and when it dissipated nothing was the same, in more ways than one. “Where did he send them?”

Alfred appeared behind her in a manner that still unnerved her. “I sent them somewhere safe. The ice will keep them protected, but when I took a look at that rune I realized that I needed to protect us from them.”

“I’m sorry”

“Don’t be Master Bruce. Let me explain...” The Waynes listened to the tale of a white dragon mage that had tried to conquer the Northern Wastes by making them a land of unending winter, and turning everyone that entered into ice zombies. The rune on the cube had been the same one that Everfrost had used, but that magic had been lost for over a thousand years.

Lord Wayne listened and nodded. “But that doesn’t answer the big question. How did he know how we would try to examine them. He seems to have an answer to everything we try. When Victor tried that anti-magic field, the body disintegrated as if the whole body was made of magic matter, when Lucius used his analytic spells it transformed him instead. And now...”

“And now two of my friends are dead and I want to make him suffer before I kill him... Re-kill him?” Cat’s hand went to her wand instinctively, Bruce knew that his wife might be hot-headed but she was also able to plan ahead. His look made her smile. “Yes, I promise that I will not go solo on this one.” 

Jester felt the shift as the last puppet self-destructed and tripped his trap. He saw Victor’s surprised face as he picked up the soulstone and became a ice thrall. He squealed in delight when Nora Freeze grabbed the stone and became cursed as well. He knew that the two of them would be the most obvious choice to examine the bodies, and had planned accordingly. What he hadn’t planned on was the fact that the Waynes weren’t actually there, they were just watching by mirror. He did nearly pee himself laughing when he saw the fury on both of their faces as their two most powerful mages became his puppets.

He stopped laughing though, when the entire morgue started to sparkle and glitter in the obvious effects of a teleport spell that must have been cast by a high level mage that he had never seen before. His connection died before the sparkling did. Where ever they went, it must have been a different plane, since he couldn’t feel them anywhere. He had been able to complete the Ice Thrall spell though. If the dork knight did manage to find his friends, they would be in for a rude reunion. Now what to have for dinner.... Oh wait, he didn’t need to eat anymore! The giggles soon devolved into mindless laugher. Time for a good book! 

The old bailey was all that remained of the old Bullock Manor, but it served Harvey for his home. It was four walls and a roof, and Harvey didn’t care for much more. His spartan office was a far cry from his rather messy home. His mother had left him the ramshackle home after her passing, and he had moved in shortly after. It was outside the city, but it wasn’t too far. He closed up the shutters on the one remaining window that shut out the dying light of sunset and he remembered why he moved out here. The floors glowed with the runes that his mother had placed there, but it was the lamp on the table that illuminated the room and showed him the door that would only appear in the dark. By day the wall was as seamless as they came, but here and now the door would open for him.

His mother’s pride and joy was the library beneath the bailey and he had helped her uncover it, and clean out the rodents that to a small child seemed like wandering monsters. That experience in tracking them down had led him to become first a ranger, then a man-at-arms for Lord Wayne. But for all of his adventures, he enjoyed nothing so much as curling up with a tome and a glow sphere that his mother had made for a very young Harvey Bullock.

Tonight’s book was “Kederfect on Risling Lake”. And while he had read it before he always loved a good romance. He had just read to the part where Jacob had rescued his brother’s girlfriend... and they were caught in the rain... And that was when one of warning runes that he had placed went off. He knew that thieves knew well enough to leave this place alone, so he carefully set the book down and reached for the large mirror next to his chair. The night might have been moonless, but the scrying spell showed him a view that was as bright as day. Fifteen masked men were trying to sneak up on the bailey, and not doing a very good job of it. “Always at the good part...”

As he stood next to the door, he looked at his armor and wondered if he really needed it. He grunted and grabbed the breastplate. It wasn’t the ones you saw that got you, it was the ones you didn’t. It took him a few minutes, but the wards would hold long enough.

The first man to touch one of the hidden wards found out the hard way why Bullock was so feared amongst the nare-do-wells of Gotham. He froze where he stood, and soon was quite unable to move as the ground around his feet seemed to liquify and swallow him up to the neck. The other masked men didn’t even give him a second glance as they spread out to look for a way trough the traps arrayed against them. Mor precisely, they simply formed a line one abreast and walked towards the bailey. 

Two more had fallen into the Quick Pit traps before he managed to get his armor on; but he didn’t stop to gloat as he muttered a silence spell on his armor before he opened the door. A Sticky Tree had manage to snare another, but that sill left fourteen..... Fourteen?

As he watched the one stuck in the tree is became clear how they were doing it. The man seemed to inflate like a balloon, then the skin of the balloon would rupture at the bottom, and the man simply slipped out of the trap. “Clever trick. You must be the Jester’s latest Goon squad. Poor sods.” He looked at the identical masks. These must be people that had crossed paths with the Jester and felt his wrath. The masks were the actual enemy here. They controlled the people wearing them much like the ones that Cat and Crow had run into, but these were not nearly as intelligent. As mindless as a Zombie, the Goons were little more than living weapons. They were fearless, savage, and felt no pain at all. Sadly that meant that the masks were often all that was keeping the poor fools alive at this point.

They all looked back at him with identical rictus grins and pale white blank eyes. The claws that covered their original hands looked like bone, but were in actuality magically hardened clay that acted like armor, and cut like knives. He had seen the victims of those claws, and he was in no hurry to test his armor against them.

They approached in a wave and he knew that fighting all of them at once was tantamount to suicide no matter how good he was, or rther how bad they were, so he did the logical thing he could do... He ran.

The ruined castle’s battlements looked like the teeth of some foreboding creature in the daylight, and by night they were the things of children’s nightmares. A thought that made him laugh, as they were his childhood stomping grounds. He had grown up amongst the ruins and he knew every shattered wall and crumbling battlement that remained. So when he climbed up the ruined catwalk and jumped over to the parapet’s walkway he knew exactly where to land. Five of the Goons were soon doing their balloon trick to escape from the pitfalls that had befallen them due to their lack of that knowledge.

The great hall had at onetime been a destination for feasts and parties. Now it was little more than a burned out spiderweb of rafters sticking out of the lone remaining wall. He was swinging from one to the next n a manner more befitting an ape than a spider when the first of the Goons tried to take a swing at his feet. For his troubles the Goon lost his head to a well placed kick from a steel-lined boot. The rider’s blade may have snapped of, but it did it damage, and the broken-masked Goon did not get back up. 

“Well that changes things.” Harvy landed on top of one of the Goons in a strage parody of a rabbit as he jumped off the man before he could attack in turn. In a flash, Harvey’s hands seemed to sprout daggers that just as fast seemed to appear on the masks of the two closest Goons. They each took a couple of steps forward before falling over like marionettes with their strings cut. 

He laughed as he faced the next bunch of Goons. The long daggers that Harvey favored for close combat were not the normal ones found in the town market. When he raised his hands the two blades had already returned, but he knew that they would require cleaning before he could put them away. Maybe he should talk to Oracle about blessing them as well.

This time two had managed to get behind him as well as the two in front. A flick of the wrists and the two in front were going down while he spun around to cast a web spell to slow the others down, by the time his blade had return though the others had managed to catch up. He raised one of the blades in mock salute. “I should thank you guys, this is one of the best work outs I’ve had in a while... But I’m bored.” He held his blades out and pointed the towards the sky. No living being was left to hear what he said as the bailey’s courtyard was filled with purifying fire. When the fire died down, nothing but fifteen burnt bodies surrounded a very tired Harvey Bullock. A simple detect evil spell told him that he was alone, and frankly he knew that he was being watched. A quick flick of his hands and his blades were safely in their sheathes. Then he drew his cloak around him, and headed home. 

At every step he expected an ambush, even after he passed through the protective runes in his home. So much so that when he saw his mother looking at her favorite book he was stunned. “Mother?” She turned around and the illusion was destroyed when the pale white face of Mime smiled back a him. His stunned moment had cost him though. When he tried to move once more, he found that he couldn’t. He knew this spell all too well. The Hold Person spell was one of the first spells that magic using Men-at-arms learned upon joining Lord Wayne’s forces. It’s biggest weakness was the fact that it was easiest to break if someone tried to harm the person being held in any way. All he had to do was ‘feel’ harmed and he would have an easier time breaking the enchantment. And besides, he had never heard of Mime not hurting her target. After all assassins were not known for being gentle, and Mime had a reputation for being very good at taking her targets apart.

She approached him and her hand caressed his arm. The cold touch he had been expecting was surprisingly warm and gentle. Her hand touched his face and he felt... Sadness? Not his, but her’s. It was if she was trying to tell him something, but what ever it was was beyond him. And his attention was soon drawn to the man sitting in his chair, and holding his book... His favorite book. If he damaged that book... “You know that we have something in common?” The man with the painted face and colorful outfit could only be one person, but Harvey couldn’t even move his mouth to say his name, or the other curses that he wanted to say. The man seemed to notice Harvey’s predicament and smiled an evil smile. “That’s right, I added  
a little caveat to the spell. You can’t harm me in anyway, nor can you even speak unless I...” and he somehow bowed with a flourish while still sitting, “...let you.” He made a gesture and Harvey found his mouth back in his own control.

“Imuro...ru..ru..” Almost his own control.

“No you can’t cast any kind of spells either. Not even cantrips. But that was a nice try.”

“Why?”

“Funny you don’ t strike me as the most inquisitive type. Im fact, you don’t strike me at all! Ha ha ha.....” The man drifted off into laughter for a couple of seconds before gently setting the book down on the table. “Why what?”

“Why haven’t you killed me, or turned me into a Goon?”

“The rumors of your stupidity are greatly exaggerated, I see. It’s really simple: I need you alive so that this will work.” He put his hands together and when he pulled them apart a mask appeared between them. He then took the mask and shook it vigorously in one hand. When he stopped he had two identical masks. He took one mask in the other hand and a hand from behind Harvey took it.

“Really boss, We got to do this guy?” Harvey could hear him, but while the voice sound familiar, he just couldn’t place it. It almost sounded like...

“It was either him or that puzzle chick, and you don’t have the legs for that.” He leaned forward and whispered into Harvey’s ear: “Or any other body part that matches, if you ask me!”

Whispering into his ear had actually been a distraction. Harvey suddenly found himself in darkness as the mask covered his face. He blinked as he could suddenly see again even though he had noticed that the mask had not had any eye holes. There was a pressure in his ears and head as something was happening inside his head. He tried to fight it, but he suddenly found his mind in two places at once. In one place he could see through the mask but his body wouldn’t move, in the other he was a passenger in another person’s body. He could now see the room from another position that included his frozen body, with Mime holding him for some odd reason.

“Okay boss, how do We look?”

“Take a look in the mirror, I think your guest would get a kick out of this as well.”

He felt the second body move over to his father’s full size mirror. The view shifting as it moved. And when he saw the reflection he knew what Jester’s game was. He was looking at a doppelganger of himself. “Wow, that’s wizard! Ask us a question only he would know!”

“Where is his mother buried?”

Harvey tried to fight it, but while the pain he expected never arrived, he couldn’t help but think of the glade out back.

“She buried out back, in the glade.”

“What is the password to get into Wayne Keep?”

He thought of the first book that he had ever read, and how the hero had loved his horse ‘Silverbolt’. He kept thinking of the horse’s name, and nothing else. 

“Gendermine, but We keep wanting to say Silverbolt.”

“He’s trying to fight you. Silly boy, you can’t fight me so long as I don’t hurt you.” He walked over to stand in front of the man wearing the mask. The man never saw the blade sever his head, but Harvey watched in grim fascination as his view suddenly shifted and tumbled with the severed head. 

The shock of losing his head was nothing next to the sock of seeing the body just stand there without a head. The headless body simply walked over to where the head and mask had landed and grabbed them. Once reattached, the man’s voice seemed a little off for a second before returning to Harvey’s own. “Sir, that tickled!”

“Sorry Franky, but I needed to teach him a lesson, and that was just too good of a joke to pass up.”

“A joke? We don’t get it?”

“No, but he did.”

Harvey did. ‘Don’t lose your head, or you’ll lose your head.’ Jester wouldn’t have any qualms about killing his own men. Even Franky who was obviously a Flesh Golem.

“Now take off the mask and give it to Clown.”

“Oh, do We have to? This is the most fun We’ve had in ages.”

“Yes my dear boy, you are too small to pass for our friend, and Clown also knows Harvey’s fighting style, while you tend to simply hug your targets to death.”

“Okay, but can We play with this one?”

“No, I need him to survive for at least the time it takes for him to starve to death. And if you play with him, then he will end up like those dire wolves we let you play with.”

“But... You fixed them...”

Jester giggled as he responded. “And I never saw zombie wolves that were terrified of anything before.” The thought of zombies that ran away form a child-like creature was funny though. “No.. I will leave him to Mime’s tender mercies. Mime, make sure he is protected from harm until I say so. As a treat to you, you can treat him to all the pleasure you can give him while he lasts. That should keep him from trying anything.”

She didn’t know if he had slipped up or was testing her, but his very words gave her the excuse she was looking for. She nodded and her body flowed around the man-at-arms until she seemed to form a second skin over him, then they both seemed to sink into the ground that made up the floor of the bailey.

Harvey felt trapped, but oddly he felt safeer than before. A sensation of moving was about all he felt from his body, but he was also feeling a gentle caress in his mind from Mime. If she was trying to keep him from struggling, she was doing a good job. Not that it mattered, he couldn’t have escaped if he wanted to, but it didn’t jive with the bodies he had investigated.

Jester had always used Mime to take out his rivals and their bodyguards in gruesome ways that had even made the Freezes blanch at the scenes. He had seen the carnage himself, and while he would not shed a tear for the Cirque Du Strange, he did wonder how anyone could feel that much rage. The alchemist known as Professor Pyg had been the worst. They never found all of the parts to his body.

A sensation of satisfaction swept through him from his captor. She was proud of killing them. That sent a shiver down his spine. The next feeling was one of concern. She was worried about him? Was she worried that Jester would hurt her if he came to harm? Nothing... Was she worried about him? He felt a warmth that had nothing to do with temperature sweep through him. His confusion was interrupted when he felt himself being moved into a open space. 

Wherever he was, the darkness was complete, as he felt Mime pull away and he was still in the stygian darkness that he had been in since she pulled him into herself. The connection to her mind was severed when she was no longer touching him. He had never felt so alone, and even her touch was welcome when he felt her hand touch his chest. Mime was drawing a rune on his chest, and he knew many runes that would have killed him, both painfully and painlessly; and given his druthers, he knew which he would have chosen. The Beggar’s Gift Glyph was not only well know to him, he had helped develop it with his mother. The glyph would keep him feed and warm for three days. He was really confused now. The hand touching his chest lingered for a second but almost reluctantly left him there in the dark. Alone and still wondering who that masked man had been. Some time between leaving the room and arriving here, the man had removed the mask and he had never gotten a good look at him.

His last piece of a vastly disjointed puzzle was the sudden flash of love, longing, and loss that flashed in his mind as her hand was the last part of her that left his chest.

 

Corona tapped at the window at the highest point of the tower where she knew that Crow called home. The fact that the room was dark did not deter her in the least. Glowing eyes appeared at the window and Crow’s face could be seen in the star lit night. The widow opened and he stared out at the floating creature outside his window. “I know the risks involved, but come in out of the cold.”

She floated in and stood before him. “We found his lair.”

“I figured. But that’s not why you’re here, is it?” He lit a candle, and she could see the rest of his room. She wasn’t surprised that it was filled with books. Like father; like son after all. The rest of the room was filled with a desk, some chairs, and a small table full of scrolls. “Follow me, I was working on something when I heard your approach.”

“My...”

“Your heartbeat.”

“Of course...” She knew he had good hearing, she just didn’t realize how good.

He walked towards the back of the tower and as she passed his bedroom she noticed that he hadn’t slept in it in a while. She had been here before, and he had a habit of pulling back the covers before bed. They hadn’t even been touched. At the end of the hall the tiny machine shop was the only place that was lit. She could see through the machine shop’s door that he was working on something huge. “What is that?”, she asked as he moved out of the way.

“I haven’t given it a name... Wayne-wing?” 

“It flys?”

“Not yet. But I am trying to make something to help father take to the skies.”

“Like the Wayne Wagon? The magic wheels you created with Lucius make it the fastest horseless wagon in the kingdom. If it’s as good then we might not need your warship the Battler, even though it should be able to get us to the island just fine.” She looked at the diagrams for various inventions that layered the walls like a patchwork wallpaper. “You make all of these for them. You know that we could do the things that need to be done in their stead. Why do let him put his life on the line?”

“We don’t value life the way they do. If you are slain then you will most likely be sent back to your home plane. If I suffer enough damage, I will turn to mist, or if I’m not careful to dust. We can live for a long time where their lives are but candles in the night. I did not ask for this, but the curse that I have means that even the sun will not kill me like other vampires. I could outlive even you. Alfred has taught me how to do many things, happily outliving the people I love is not one of them.”

She leaned against him, glad for the contact if not the scant warmth from his undead body. Despite the rumors, vampires were not completely cold like other undead. His body did move like a humans, it just didn’t age like one. And when he was at rest it slowed down to degrees that could easily be mistaken for death. It made them excellent hunters, and even better rouges and spies. Crow was never supposed to be one, but she honest enough to say that she was glad that he had become one. She had loved him before he became one, but it was only after that she had been able to even touch him without hurting him. “You won’t outlive me.”

“No, and that is one of the few lights in my life that does not cause me pain.”

“You made a joke.”

“I did?”

“Corona, a light that doesn’t cause pain.”

“You have a strange sense of humor.”

“It’s funnier in Fiendish.”

At this he did laugh. “I’m sure it is.” He turned to see her eye watering up. “What’s wrong?”

“I did it again...” She wrapped her wings around her body like a second cloak.

He took her by the shoulders and pulled her towards him. With one hand he lifted her head to face his. “What?”

“I try and put the fiend in a chest, and it keeps coming out.”

Crow tried really hard but the laugh was already half out before he could stop it. When he started, he found that he just couldn’t stop.

“Jason Grayson Wayne, what did I say about laughing at me?”

In between gasps he tried to explain: “Your... chest... keeps... coming out!” By the look on her face he could tell that she finally got the joke. Her normally pale skin’s sudden transformation into a shade of pink was impressive. The lighting that coursed over her body started to cause his own hair to stand on end. “Not in here! Not In Here!”

“BEDROOM NOW!” Her voice boded no negotiation, and he figured that he wasn’t going to get off easily.

“Now just calm down Corona, I didn’t mean anything by it, it’s just he way you said it!” He looked around and made sure that there weren’t too many flammable items in the room, but his bed was not one of them. “I’m sorry, didn’t...” when he looked back at Corona he noticed for the first time that she was untying her bodice. “Um.. Not complaining, but weren’t you just mad at me?”

“No, but I needed to do something to get you in here, and I was running out of small talk.” Her bodice, was soon joined by the rest of her clothes. “Now what were you saying about my chest?”

As he stood there looking at the alabaster body of the most beautiful succubus he had ever tangled with, Jason knew he had been right earlier. He wasn’t going to get off easily tonight. At least he no longer feared her touch. One of the many perks of being a vampire. Ripping his leather workman’s coverall off like it was made of paper was another.

 

The strange realm known as Pandemonium was a demi-plane of the Plane of Chaos. The laws of reality had very little to do with the working of Chaos, and in Pandemonium it wasn’t and different. What was different was the Castle hanging upside down in the sky. Three people walking across the landscape approached the draw bridge, and waited for it to lower. Not only did it open, but it stretched all the way down to where they stood. Once they were all on the end, it sprung back until they were inside. 

Once inside they found themselves inside a museum of sorts. Statues of various people all obviously terrorized of different things stood in nice neat rows along the floor, walls, and even the ceiling. They walked along the marked path towards a vast hall. A mirror on the wall showed an old man dressed in rags, a child covered in bruises, and a skeletally thin little girl. 

Jester looked at the mirror and pointed his finger. An arc of lighting struck the mirror and it shattered into fragments that melted as soon as they hit the floor. “Cut the ‘Parlor’ tricks Johnny.” The melted shards of the mirror pooled together and became a brown drab looking man-shaped thing dressed in rags. A second pool became its hat which it made a great show of picking up in a boneless way and dusting it off. “Greetings Jester...” The sorrowful voice seemed to be made of rustling straw. “You are here for the items... Did you bring what we agreed upon?”

Jester pulled out a small box. He opened up to reveal four glowing crystals.

“The deal was for two... Do you wish for more?”

“Yes, I need two more. It seems that the family that wears the Bat as a family crest will be taking to air soon. So I’ll need something to swat bats.” 

“I’m better with Crows... But I think we can do something... Wait here.” The Scarecrow walked toward the closest wall and walked up it and into a door in the ceiling.

“Do you really think the Waynes can get to our island? They don’t have a navy, they barely have an army, and their airpower is limited to Crow and his bimbo.”

“Someone moved an entire section of the keep to another plane that I haven’t been able to divine.” He waved his finger to emphasize his point. “No, until I know who shifted that, then we don’t even dare to underestimate them.”

“But I thought we had all of their mages accounted for?” Clown muttered.

“Maybe it’s someone that is hidden. Someone that doesn’t want to show their power.”

Jester laughed. “A mage that doesn’t show off?” He laughed so hard he had to hold on to his side even though it was just an act. “Next you’re going to tell me that his butler is some sort of wizard.”

Harlequin laughed at that. “Your right Mr. J. That’s silly.”

Scarecrow walked right out of the floor and stood beside Jester. Everyone but Jester jumped at his arrival. In his hands were four little metal spheres. Each was about the size of Scarecrow’s little finger. “These are very powerful. Each one is enough to take out a city full of people. What do expect to use them on?”

“A city full of people of course!”

The five people sitting in the back of Platinum Paula’s Pub had not had a good day. Each of them had just brought their last client back from a Black Dragon’s lair, and they had just managed get back to the pub with their loot when the rain started. Paula had been sorry to inform them that she had identified their loot as mostly worthless baubles. Their Client, it seemed, had made off with the one useful item, and left them with worthless junk. She had given them a free meal and had generously offered them lodgings until the rain stopped.

Clarence the Cleric had managed to heal them with his last spell of the day and sat down to his large bowl of soup. “I want to smite him.”

“Felix won’t let you.” Rafael the rouge pointed to their former knight, who was their best fighter. Rafael looked around to see if the brooding man had seen them, but the dwarf was oblivious to anything but his third ale. 

“But I would. I might even cast a few spells to help.” Michael, their elven mage, said between bites of his salad. 

An even smaller than normal halfling climbed up on the barstool. The dog that was his constant companion looked up at him until he tossed a chunk of meat down to him. “We could always live in my place.” This got a round of laughter from his companions. Ricky’s ranger lifestyle meant that ‘his place’ was where ever he set up his tiny tent.

Paula watched the five eating and marveled at fate’s fickle fortunes. Here were five of the future’s greatest warriors in one of their lowest points. They were just beginning their careers, and they hadn’t even... Angie pulled at her sleeve. “Yes dear?”

“Remember when you explained how the water spell worked?”

“Yes?” The water inside he pub was driven through pipe by a special spell. And anything that disturbed that spell disturbed her.

“Well the water isn’t coming out of the pipes anymore.” She had never seen Paula go pale for anything. “What’s wrong ma’am?”

Paula pulled out her mirror and waved her hand over it. A quick gesture and every door and window in the place was suddenly locked, and magically warded. “Get the girls, and tell them that they are about to be tested.”

“Yes Ma’am!” She ran off and her look of dread was now mixed with one of anticipation.

Once she was off, Paula walked over to the table where the five men were looking around. “Felix Tamerlane of House Tamerlane I have need of your services.” The bleary eyed dwarf looked up at her with out really comprehending her until she waved her hand in front of his face. The sudden headache he felt brought him into the moment, its equally sudden disappearance bought his complete attention.

“What would you have of us mage?”

“We are about to be attacked.” He reached for the sword at his side. “But you can not kill them. The towns people are about to become their own worst enemies.” No sooner had she spoken than something hit the door.

“Then what good are we?”

“I will give you weapons, but you can not tell anyone where you got them. The spell on them will prevent them from working for anyone else; but you must never speak of where you got them, or they will vanish forever.”

“You are more than you appear to be.” Clarence looked at her and tried to figure out how she knew all of this. “You know what’s going on, but how?”

“Yes, but that is another story for another time.”

“Time! I used up all of my spells for today!”

“Go into the rest room.”

“I’m sorry... I don’t...” The Command spell was not an easy one to resist. Especially when a much higher level caster casts it. Clarence tried, but he found his feet moving before he could make so much as a token resistance.

His friends barely realized what had happened when he came right back out the same door. “What the...”

“What just happened?” Ricky and Mutt were half way to the cleric before he waved them off.

“A whole day... I was in there for a whole day, but you guys haven’t moved.”

Michael looked at Paula and said what was on everyone’s mind. “Why do you need our help?”

“My power comes with a price. It can’t work outside of these walls. Out there I am not powerless, but I don’t have nearly as much to draw upon.”

“Michael, can’t you see... She is a mage, but most of her powers are in her magic items.”

“I get that Felix.” Something was still bothering him though. “You were a little too prepared for something like this. Yet, by the looks of it, what ever this is still took you by surprise.”

“Being prepared for an emergency is different from knowing that one is coming.”

“Yes, but...” He was interrupted by a crash against the window behind him.

“Now is not the time. If we survive the night, then you may get some answers.”

“That may have to do.” The dwarf looked at his companions. “What weapons do you have for us to work with then?”

 

The Dark Night received the first reports of strange goings on from Paula shortly afterwards. But he had already been preparing for battle. The Wayne wing had been finished by Crow and Corona this morning and the test flight was to be a baptism of fire. His armor was already on when she called, but his sword had yet to be sheathed. The blade’s spirit had been restless and he had been communing with Damian. Damian had felt that something was wrong as well. Now he knew what. Something was in the rain, and where ever it fell people were going mad. They would have to wait until the rain dispersed, and Alfred had tried every spell he knew to affect the weather to no effect. 

 

The rain took over four hours to disperse, and when it did the city was on fire. Fire Marshal Mages might not have been able to extinguish during the rain, but they had managed to keep the damage to a minimum. The streets were full of people and they were all terrified. And in that terror, they were striking out at anything in their path. The number of people that were still in their right mind were few and far between. Connie had taken cover in her office with  
Point and Ponder dealing with anyone foolish enough to try and enter without permission. The dolls were on the roof providing some eyes in the sky, so to speak, for them. She was looking through her mirror and flicking from doll to doll. That’s when she spotted a familiar face... okay mask. Cowering under a rain soaked awning she spotted her Blank. The twin gasps behind her told her that she was going to have to figure out a... 

“Do we go,”

“ or do you?”

Her heart nearly skipped a beat, but she managed to calm down. “We all go.”

“What about the water?”

“Remember the Moor of the Waiths job?”

“Those leather”

“ Suits?”

“Will they”

“Protect”

“Us?”

“For a while at least. But I’m more concerned about what he will see. What ever was in that rain, it seems to make people terrified of everything. And they are attacking anyone they see, so we need to be rather...”

“Circumspect?”

“Stealthy?”

“Yes, but we also can’t get caught out there. We need to lead him in here.”

“You do know that we would all”

“Look nearly the same in the dark.” 

“Yes, it would be a riddle for him to figure out, now wouldn’t it?”

Vincent watched for movement. He could see magic items moving all around him. He wanted to attack them but to do so would mean that he would have to leave the safety of his hiding spot. He reached for his weapons. The sword at his side was a comforting weight, and the throwing knives in their sheathes were ready to fly at a moments notice. Everything out there was out to get him, and those he cared about. And he was afraid... Afraid that he wouldn’t be able to protect her... Them... His job was to protect the whole kingdom, and the idea of failing that had him petrified. He had to move, or something would get him, or worse those he cared about. If he didn’t move... He had to move or she.. They... He could feel his mind going in circles, but he couldn’t get out of that rut. There was something that he was missing... something that would hurt the ones... Three big things... They were new... Or were they? Had they been sent for him? Sent to stop him, that had to be it. They were moving towards his hiding spot too quickly. 

The fact that they had come from the very spot he had been watching was lost on him. His mind had locked on them as targets to be dealt with, and the fear he felt only drove him harder to defeat them. They were between him and those he cared about, and therefore must be destroyed. His vison pierced the rain, and the night to spy the three forms coming his way. They were clad in full armor, but it was leather, not metal. The fools were charging right to their doom, and he would show them no mercy. 

The leather armor had been enchanted to allow Connie to swim underwater and still be able to talk to her companions. Out here in the rain, it not only protected her from it, but it allowed them to communicate without risk of accidently getting any in their mouths. She moved with the quick graceful motions that her mentor, and all of her experience, had taught her. They flowed onto the roof and took up positions around him. “Victor, how can we help you?”

He watched them move with obvious skill and adjusted his opinion of them. They weren’t fools, in fact they were both confident and competent. He couldn’t make out what the woman was saying, but he hadn’t been listening anyway. His sword was out and its blade descending almost in on motion, but the slight change had been all the woman to his right had needed. Her own blade had parried his, andshe tried to get a grip on his arm. He tossed her aside, only to be hit from the other side by the third woman. He had been waiting for that, and his dagger nearly found it mark in her chest. Only she had dodged the blow as is she knew it was coming. He found her leg coming towards his leg, and he jerked back, just dodging out of the way but not in time to avoid the first woman’s strike. The whip wrapped around his sword at the crossbar, and his leather gloved hands and its soaked bindings cost him as it went flying across the roof. He was off balance when the third woman kicked his legs out from under him. His even lightly-armored weight was more than the roof had been built for. Two of the four supports that held up the overhang snapped, and the entire roof started to tilt.

The sudden release of tension nearly caused Connie to slip on the wet tiles, and when the roof started to go she nearly lost it again. She managed to stop her slide, but Victor was heading her way. Point had tripped him, and now he went sliding past her. Her second whip lashed out and grabbed his foot before he could fly off the roof, but his weight was more than she could cope with. 

The tiles under her feet started to come loose as she was dragged closer to the edge. She switched to a two-handed grip and bent down, but she was still sliding towards the edge when hand grabbed her from behind. Point and Ponder had tossed out some grappling hooks and had her back.. literally! They worked together to pull the limp body up and over the edge. 

Connie rolled Victors body over and looked at his mask. She was still reaching for it when the flash happened. She heard Victor utter something, but she hadn’t gotten the chance to respond before the Hold Monster Spell froze all three of them in their places.

“So you thought you would capture me so easily, did you?” He looked at the frozen monsters and shook his head. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter... Once I dispatch you back to what ever hell you came fro you will nat be able to harm my friends.” He picked up his sword and untangled it from the whip. He looked at the whip and spun around. “What have you done to her, you feinds!”, he screamed at Connie. “I gave her this!” the whip uncoiled in his hand an flicked out towards Connie. “Speak!”

“Victor, it’s me. Stop this!”

“How dare you use her voice!” His sword pierced her heart and she fell to the shattered roof. He ripped off her helm and stepped back. “No..” He collapsed to the roof and cried bitter tears, bitter but cleansing tears.

“Victor, you fool...” She could feel the water covering her face, and soaking her hair. The hold spell had been broken by his attack, but a new one was taking effect. “Father...”

Victor looked up to see her still alive. Of course... His sword was charmed. It could not harm an innocent. Any other time, the idea of Connie Nundrum as an innocent would have been funny, now the only emotion he had was of elation. “No Connie, he’s long gone.” He crawled over to her. His own injuries were forgotten as he mover towards the limp body of the one light in his life. 

“Father, I’m sorry... please don’t...’ She started to crawl away from him.

“I’m not him.”

“NO, not another riddle... When is a father, not a father, right?” She tried to stand but the combination of the effects of the fear and the psychic shock of being stabbed by the one person she loved more than anyone else in the world had broken her in a way that brought down all of her defenses.

“NO Connie, Stop it!” He dispelled the hold spell on Point and Ponder. They wasted no time in running to her side. They didn’t make it.

“Answer: when a girl is old enough...” She jumped off the roof. Point and Ponder were nearly knocked off themselves when Victor rushed past them in a blur that was magically enhanced. His decent was also enhanced, so much so that he passed her on the way down. His body enfolded hers, and held her as they hit the ground.

Point and Ponder grabbed the two bodies and pulled them out of the rain.

Connie woke up to the all-too-familiar minty flavor of the healing potion that Point and Ponder were famous for. The lingering pains she felt had nothing to do with the injuries she had incurred tonight. As she watched the sleeping form of the masked protector on her floor she hoped, and prayed that others were doing better then they were...

Oswald Cobblepot looked at what was left of his favorite umbrella, and swore in High Gnomish... Which since there wasn’t any High, Low or technically a Middle Gnomish, simply meant that he swore in Gnomish with an Elven accent.

“I’m so sorry uncle, I’ll get you a new one!” The brightly colored robes of Robin Wayne were soaked, not in the rain, but in the blood of the countless men and women that they had had to take down in his Tavern. The bodies were strewn all over, and she had had to fall back on her staff instead of her sword in order to avoid killing more of them, but she knew that some of the larger patrons would be requiring the services of clerics in order to bring them back.

“You most certainly will! And if she breaks another one I may have to kill your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my...” Robin dodged a blow that would have taken her head off if she hadn’t seen it coming. What ever was effecting her masked companion, it was had seriously degraded her abilities as well.

“You could have fooled me.” He drew another one of his many umbrellas from the back of his suit. One of his crew got too close, and he hit her with his gauntlet. The poor gal went flying into another bar patron, where they promptly began fighting. He turned his massive frame back to face the masked woman that Robin had been smitten with for as long as his adopted niece had known her. The same woman that had entered by smashing his skylight and causing his clients and crew to riot. The same woman that he owed a secret debt to... and was now, for some reason that was beyond him, trying to kill him.

He had just managed to get into his Penguin Diving Suit before she had reduced the building to ruin, but not before his entire crew was either cowering in the basement, or rampaging through the rest of his formerly pristine place of debauchery. 

“Save it for later we have to stop her.”

Oswald opened the umbrella and activated the shield spell just in time to deflect a fireball that set one of his tables on fire instead. “Will you please stop spouting the obvious child!” He drew another umbrella from his holder and set the spell to activate as soon as it was picked up. He handed it point first to Robin as she stood behind him. “Wave this at her.”

“Wha...” The look he gave her shut her up. It wasn’t one of anger, but of mischief. She took the umbrella and waved it at... at Renee... “This won’t...”

“Hush, and just do what I ask.”

One of the men came too close and Renee stabbed him through the heart. She watched as the number of people between her and her prize dwindled. This little bird had been the cause of too many of her fears, and if she was gone... No, she had to protect Robin from... Cobblepot? No, she had to protect Cobblepot from... why was robin waving that stupid thing at her... Hadn’t Cobblepot told her how too... She grabbed the trick wand by the proper end and... Shot up towards the ceiling. She tried to let go, but her hand wouldn’t budge. She tried to use her other hand, but found it stuck there just as firmly. Somehow Cobblepot had cast a web spell on it while she wasn’t looking. She hung there stuck to the ceiling kicking ineffectively while they stood back.

Oswald looked up at his adopted daughter, and then down to his ‘Niece’. “Your father will be getting my bill.” He noticed that Robin was trying hard not to laugh. “What?”

“Bird puns... I thought you gave those up.”

“I... Did...” He looked around him. The bar, and the gambling tables were smashed, and some were smoldering. Bodies of his crew and patrons were everywhere. “They aren’t funny any more.”

“Too bad we don’t have time to reminisce. I need to get back to the keep. How long will that spell last?”

“Hopefully, longer than the one she’s under. That is one bird that I was never able to keep..” Oswald sighed and let the comment die on his tongue. The young woman hanging from his umbrella had been found on a derelict ship as a baby, and he had taken her as his own daughter. As a child that had not even reached her teens, she had been the one to lead him on the their fated adventure to save Robin from the Bogeyman known as Fagan Kidsman.

“Caged?” She knew why he didn’t finish the lame pun. It wasn’t because of his oath to quit bird puns, but the memories of all the children that they hadn’t been in time to save. Her father had come to the rescue at the last moment, but it had been too late for far too many of Bogeyman’s victims. Some of the surviving kids were strewn around the room; at least two of them in dire need of something more powerful than healing potions.

“Rather, I could never keep her feet on the ground. Her head was always in the clouds.” He pulled yet another umbrella out of his suit, and handed it to Robin. “And speaking of Clouds, take this to protect yourself.”

She looked at it carefully. “What spell does this one cast?”

Oswald laughed, “None, it is simply a regular umbrella. Now get going and watch out for what’s coming down. Those clouds still look like they are hiding something.”

Up above the clouds two shapes soared over the storm. One was that familiar shape of a dragon’s outline, while the other had a decidedly odd form. Leather wings, and a large balloon seemed to be grafted to the masts of a small sailboat. At the helm Crow looked out to see the clouds starting to disperse. Perched precariously on the bowsprit sat a lithe female form. He smiled at the sight of his new girlfriend sitting there so much like his adopted mother might. He would never tell either, but it was things like this that made his decision to remain among the land of the living so much easier. Corona could have wander the planes with him, but he felt at home here, if not at peace. The Wayne Wing was working just as he designed it to, and once they finished testing it, they would revolutionize the way people traveled the world. Father had sent Alfred had joined them up here to warn him about the strange effects of the clouds below them. 

At first he thought that his parent’s had simply sent him up here to check on them. The sudden displacement of air that happened when Alfred had caused when he teleported in dragon form had caused him to nearly tip the craft over. It wouldn’t have been a problem since both he, and Corona could fly, but he was glad that he hadn’t damaged the craft. When he heard about the cursed rain that was falling below him he knew that something must have been hiding inside the cloud. “Alfred can we do anything to disperse these clouds? Some magic spell?”

“No my son, this requires something greater than magic.” The dragon’s roaring voice carried over the distance with an ease that let him know that however old the great protector was, he hadn’t lost a single bit of his power.

“We don’t have time for riddles... Time is greater than magic.” Or his way of handing out wisdom in ways that made people think for themselves. “I hate waiting though.”

The red and black blur that erupted from the top of the clouds hit the bottom of the Wayne Wing hard enough that Crow heard something brake. It had to have knocked a hole in the bottom as the ship suddenly shot upwards. Corona jumped off the wooden beam and flew under the ship to see what had hit them. She hadn’t made it back around before a very familiar form appeared on the deck. The hatch that lead down to the ballast room was tossed aside as Mime climbed on to the deck. Crow drew his sword and moved towards the silent assassin. Mime suddenly turned her head as Corona slammed into her side. The surprise was one-sided as Mime quickly slammed the flying woman into the rigging. He spotted Alfred diving below the airship, so he focused all of his attention on the more pressing threat. 

Mime watched as her brother moved with such grace and power. She felt both pride, and confusion facing him. She knew that mother, and father would have been proud of how he had turned out. At least up until the day he died, and became the vampire creature she saw before her. She knew that he was a Daywalker, but she was still saddened to see him cursed in a way so similar, and yet different from her own. She wanted not so much as to let him either kill her, or to figure out a way to let him know who she was. But for all her wishes, Jester’s curse was just too strong.

Crow dodged her first strike as her arm stretched out to try and impale him. His blade sliced off her arm, but it simply melted back into her form as she walked over it. His return strike severed her head, but it simply reattached itself as if she were made of clay. He dove for cover as her hands and arms became a giant mallet that smashed the deck he had been standing on. The mallet quickly became two giant blades where her forearms should have been. She stated to spin like a dancer, and he jumped up into the rigging. She followed him, and he caught something out of the corner of his eye. He jumped to the next spar by flipping once around one of the support beams. She followed suit in a way that she didn’t have to. She could have simply stretched from one to the other, but she did the same maneuver. In a split second he decided to try something either phenomenally stupid, or wonderful. He jumped backwards, and held out his hands.

Mime saw Jason doing the same routine that they had done in their parent’s circus, and with out even thinking, she caught him. She flipped him back on to the deck and they simply looked at each other. “Alice?” Mime’s only answer was to turn her head to on side. When she turned it back, the face had a tear below one eye, and it was no longer smiling. “We can save you, come ba...” He was cut off when she extended one arm as a blade, and slashed the gasbag through several of the chambers. 

“Oh dear! This doesn’t look good Master Jason!” The sudden sound of Alfred yelling from under the sinking airship would have made him laugh if the situation hadn’t been so dire. Mime walked right over to the edge and dove off the side in his sister’s favorite style. He was running to grab Corona when the ship started to list to one side. He grabbed the rail to steady himself, and literally flew the rest of the way. Corona was still draped around the mast, and she was bleeding from a head wound so she didn’t seem to be in any shape to fly herself. He knew how much she despised being rescued, but none the less he hoisted her over his shoulders, and laughed at the wry observation that it was a good thing that neither of them required wings for flight.

“We’re free Alfred!” He flew away from the stricken airship, and he noticed that Alfred had been busy pulling out the bags of sand that had been their ballast.

“This can’t hit the city.”

“The damage it would do will be far less than if you touch that cursed cloud.”

Alfred’s head whipped around and he pushed himself off from the airship almost in the same action. Alfred had never been a great believer in luck, but in that instant he knew that the fates much have come up with a good roll of their fickle die of fate, because his wing nearly touched the misty tops of the clouds. 

They all shot upwards to watch the airships final decent. It lost the last of its ballast bags shortly before the gas chambers, and it decent look for all the world like a bird that had been hit by a sling stone. It tipped up and lost all of its forward momentum, then it plunged straight towards the clouds.

“Where do you think it will land?”

“Well Master Jason, by its course it should hit... The cloud?” The ship suddenly stopped its decent when it seemed to crash in to a cloud bank. Alfred uttered a magical incantation and waved his claw. 

The cloud bank vanished, only to be replaced by a familiar sight. Corona shifted in Crow’s arms. “That’s Jester’s island.”

“That’s no island.” Crow and Corona looked at Alfred and groaned at his use of a line from one of the oldest Bard Mage’s works.

The clouds parted from the island giving the aerial observers a clear view of the flying fortress. The island now seemed to be floating in a sea of clouds, but they knew that that massive island was nearly as large as Gotham Peak where Wayne Keep sat. a black and red form could be seen on the edge of the sphere of water that covered the pirate ship, now she was joined by other forms. By their costumes, he figured they were Clown, Harlequin, and the Goon squad. No doubt Jester was inside, and they would have to fight their way through the Goon squad to get to him. “Master Jason, you should get your friend to a healer.”

“No... All I need is to drain one of them, and I...”

“No, you may not do that in my presence.”

“But they are our enemies, we are going down there to kill them...”

“Child, if you use those powers on someone that is not a willing participant, then I would be duty bound to stop you.” He laughed at the irony of discussing this with... Let along helping a succubus to heal her wounds.

“Then if I can’t heal myself...”

“My child, there is an old saying...”

“There always is.” Crow chimed in.

Alfred rolled his eyes at the young man’s interruption before he continued. “You can not steal, that which is freely given.” She looked at him, and he swore her eyes shimmered. “Yes, you may have some of my life force. But know this, it come with a price.”

“I thought you said it was freely given.”

“It is, but there are some side effects...”

The island was strangely quiet, and Harlequin watched the three heros flying above it with trepidation. “I have a bad feeling about this”

“OH We LOVE that Play!!”

“Will you please be quiet!”

“We see Alfred!!!”

“ You see Lord Wayne’s family butler? Are you addled?”

“Yes you doof, right there!” He pointed up at the trio flying overhead.

“The one in black looks like Crow to me, Alfred wouldn’t be caught dead in that outfit, and the other one is a dragon.”

“Well duh! He’s a dragon, why do think we have....”

“SHUSH! Don’t even talk about him out here in the open. If even one of them can cast Clairaudience...”

Harlequin watched the man beside her have a passionate argument with himself. Frankie was frankly not all there, or more to the point they were not all there. Jester’s experiments had a few unfortunate failures, but Frankie was one... no make that two of a kind. Two minds in one composite body. He was unstable, violent, and nearly unstoppable. Not the kind of person she wanted backing her up. She wished that Mime was imitating her brother instead of this monstrosity, but Jester had his plan she just wished that he was beside her.

Clown was still getting used to the new mask he wore. He was walking past people that at any other time would attack him on sight, and they were waving at him. He had already gotten used to seeing Harvey’s face every time he walked past a reflective surface. Even the prompts for peoples names and answers to their questions felt funny, and not in the ‘Ha Ha!’ variety either. 

On the ‘Ha Ha’ side he did get a kick out of the hope he brought to the people he passed. The looks of terror and fear had been everywhere, and just seeing him walk by had made some of the more timid townfolk stand taller in their doorways. A tavern owner even brought him out a plate of roast pig. He sadly had to decline, but he thanked the man by name. He did stop for a drink at the fountain in Gotham Commons. The fountains were filled by an aquifer from far outside of town, and most of the pipeline was underground. But here, the fountain was fed by the waterworks under the city. A water elemental was rumored to serve the city as payment for a debt of honor. He laughed as the tiny sphere fell from the cup he had pretended to drink from. It would take a few minutes for that to dissolve, and he would be far from here before that happened. 

He looked around at the damage that the rain had wrought. While it had stopped, he could see that the damage was still growing. Fires were still being extinguished, buildings were being boarded up, and he even spotted Platinum Paula’s being patched up. He didn’t recognize the five man band that was pulling security while some of the workers were putting the doors back on their hinges, but they looked like a bunch of nobodies.

He passed the various people picking up bodies, and cleaning up after the riot. He knew that the night might not be even close to being over, but his job would require him to get to his goal before the sun rose. He picked up the pace and got a couple of funny looks from townsfolk as he made his way towards the Keep.

The doors stood before him, and he knew that he had to pass through them to accomplish, but he was still feeling a little undressed as he walked up to the gate in Harvey’s robes and soggy bed shoes. The only things he carried were the umbrella that kept the rain off, and the book that Harvey had been reading. 

“That’s not Kederfect on Risling Lake again?” He looked up to see an unknown man... Captain Tarpal... looking down from the battlements.

“Hi Tarpal, they caught me reading.”

“So what did you do? Beat them off with your umbrella?”

“Do I look like that Penguin, Cobblepot? No I fried them with my glyphs!”

That got a round of laughs from the men on the battlements. Tarpal looked down as the sodden shoes and bed clothes. “And...”

“And they fried my house as well...” The laughter that Clown expected was completely absent. Instead the door opened up.

“Get in here before the rain starts again. I’ll see about getting you a proper outfit for the time being.”

Inside the gatehouse a fire was warming the guards stationed there, and they brought him a blanket and a stool. One man took the umbrella and set it by the door next to the collection that had grown there. He offered to set the book on the desk, but Clown/Harvey waved him off. “It’s the only thing I have left. I’ll hold on to it if you don’t mind.”

Tarpal put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’ll send some men back with you after this is over. Maybe something can be salvaged?”

Clown put on his best sad face. “We’ll see, but I doubt it. I should report in. Where is the Chief?”

“He’s over at his daughter’s temple. Some people tried to burn it down. The sisters didn’t let them, and now he has to take down a report.”

“Scrollwork is never done!” Harvey’s mind was trying to fight it, but the quote was there for Clown.

“Ain’t that the truth.” Tarpal patted him on the back. “As it stands, Lord Wayne has sent most of us out to patrol the city. We are the only ones here right now, so we are really glad to see you.” Clown laughed. Tarple looked at Harvey like he wasn’t felling well. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I was just thinking that now would be a good time for me to get into some armor then.”

“Well we don’t have anything that can replace your armor, but you’re welcome to whatever we have.” 

Clown had spotted the armor he wanted the second he entered the armory, but he made a show of examining some of the other pieces. When he finally got to the green gilded platemail, Tarpal blanched. “You must be joking...”

“No... For once, I’m not.” Clown looked around. The other three guardsmen were still in the gatehouse. “But I do have one little joke.”

“What are you talking about?” Tarpal looked at his lifelong friend and had hoped that he hadn’t been affected by the rain, but now he wasn’t so sure. “Are you feeling okay?”

“To tell the truth, I haven’t been feeling quite myself today.” With a flick of his wrist he sliced the guardsman’s throat with the blade that had been hidden in the edge of the book he was carrying. To his credit, Tarpal tried to cry out, but his voice was silenced, and soon so was he. Clown caught the man as he was going for his weapon, and held him until he was sure the man was dead. He looked at the bloody mess that the man had made of Harvey’s robes and laughed.

He quickly took off the ruined clothes, and donned the armor before him. The armor in question had belonged to none other than Bane the ogre. Clown’s massive body was still small compared to the ogre’s, but Jester had planned for that. Inside the book were two vials; one green, one blue. He made sure not to mix them up, but he needed the green one. He sipped it first, and noticed the chicken flavor that Jester had added. He drank the fowl tasting concoction and knew that his life was about to change.

The first thing he noticed was the ringing in his ears. Ears that suddenly started to change form. His mask felt funny as well, so he pulled it off and tossed it in a corner. Its time was done anyway. He walked over to the armor, and started to put it on. The boots, and gauntlets felt like they were still much too large, but he could feel them snugging up as he grew. He noticed that his veins were glowing with the residual magic as his body continued to change. He rather liked the look. The breastplate, and helm were one piece, and he strapped them down as the potion finished its work. The massive sword that Bane had used was soon joined by one of the smaller, but no less deadly, broadswords that lined the walls.

Just then one of the other guardsmen came in with a plate of sandwiches. “Captain, Man-at-arms, would you two like...” He never got to finish, as Bane’s Breaker Sword cleaved him in two. The sound of the plates and the body hitting the stone floor, on the other hand, did alert the other two guardsmen, as well as the servant that had brought them all dinner. The two guardsmen bought the servant enough time to escape, but it cost both of them their lives.

Clown looked at the chaos that surrounded him and laughed. The little mouse wanted to play... Well two could play. Bane’s Breaker swung through the air, and the wall in front of him was smashed outward. He turned around and swung the sword in the opposite direction and shattered the battlement. The rubble poured in, and filled the gatehouse. No one was getting in or out of the Keep until that was cleared.

Cat awoke from where she had fallen asleep in the study. The book before her was still filled with elven runes that made little sense to her. Since it was written in common, she knew that she was still too tired to focus. She sat back and pulled out her scrying mirror. She did the incantation for her husband, and got the strangest thing. A stylized image of the Jester. She tried again, and got the same thing. The next time she tried Crow, this time she got a different image but it was still obviously the Jester. She tried Victor, and Renee, and each of them had their own version of the Jester’s ugly image. She was about to give up when the last image spoke. “I’m sorry, but all leylines are down, try again later.” The mage was jamming the communication spells somehow. A gentle knock on the door caught her attention, and she wondeed how long the person had been knocking. “Coming... This had better be important!” She opened the door and was rewarded with a surprise. A splash of something was headed her way, and while her catlike reflexes were normally up to the task, she had not slept in two nights, and bing in her own study meant that this was the last place she expected to be attacked. She still managed to dodge most of it. “What do think you.... No!” She had been hit by enough to effect a city block, and suddenly seeing the one person that had pushed her to the edge of madness was enough though. She looked at the armored figure in the doorway and the only word that she could pull together was enough as well. “BANE!”

Clown looked at the terrified woman in her housecoat and slippers. “What a way to catch a flying mouse... Use a cat as bait. I bet you didn’t see that one coming?”

Selena couldn’t believe what was in front of her. Bane had died at her, and her husband’s hands, he couldn’t be here. But he was... That’s when she noticed the glowing veins, and the strangely pale pallor his shin had taken on. ‘That’s it! He’s com back from the dead!’ She thought as her mind tried to make sense of what her eye were telling her. The potion had her paranoia, fear, and anxiety, so high that she couldn’t think straight anyway. Right now she only knew that the only way to survive would be to kill him before he killed her. 

All thoughts of what spell to use fled when he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her into the air. The pain was extreme, and she suddenly had even more trouble concentrating then she previously had. “No spells or cantrips for you. You are bait, act like it!” She looked at him with bile in her throat, and anger in her eyes. He knew how to fight magic users. She would have to trick him to use any of her magic. And her would be waiting, so she would have to distract him somehow. She wiggled suggestively in his grasp, and the man laughed as he tossed her down the stairs. “Foolish woman, you know how much I would love to split you open right now, but the Boss has other plans. That’s why he made me this way.”

She tried to focus her pain, she tried to focus her rage, but he was on her in a blink. His hand grabbed her by the troat and picked her up like a doll. “I said you were bait!”

She felt the power of rage flow through her like never before. “I AM NO ONE’S BAIT!” Her hair started to flow as if she were underwater, and all of her weight disappeared. She grabbed Bane’s hand and threw him through the tower wall.

“WHAT!!!” He fell four stories to the courtyard below; landing with enough force to crack the flagstones. He was helpless to do anything but stare as she floated down from the ruined tower. She seemed to glow from some inner light; and her eyes were bright red spots like two embers from a furnace.

Clown tried to get up but all he could do was move his arms. “Please have mercy... I think my BACK...!!!” A gesture from Cat flung him across the courtyard and into one of the walls. “Ahhh!!!” Her feet never touched the ground as she floated to where he was trying to crawl away. “PleaSE!!!” He flew across the yard once again. This time he found himself inches from the business end of a set of spears.

Outside the keep Bruce Wayne climbed off of the Wayne Wagon and looked at the ruined gatehouse. He could hear the sounds of combat inside, and he knew that his wife and all that he held dear were inside while he was trapped outside. He reached into the wagon and drew out his heavy crossbow. The grappling hook he attached would just manage to clear the battlements, but since he didn’t have anything else to climb the walls with, this was his best bet. Reaching into the bag of holding on his belt he grabbed his Gloves of the Spider and their matching shoes. They had been a gift from Cat on his birthday, and this was as good a time to use them as any. They would let him climb most any wall by themselves; the rope would simply get him past the grease spell that kept people like him from doing things like this.

Clown was still alive, but he wasn’t sure how. She had tossed him around like a direwolf with a ragdoll, but his body was still mostly intact. In a moment of time in which she was standing over him he looked up at her smiling face. “Why?”

“Because I finally can. And now, it is time for me to kill you once and for all.” She levitated him with a flick of her wrist. She could see that the fight had left him long ago, and now it was time for the life to follow.

“No.... Don’t do it.”

She looked over at the man in the armor that was so much like her husbands, but her husband wouldn’t stop her now, so this man must be an imposter. She snapped Clown’s neck and dropped the body like it was nothing. “Are you going to stop me imposter?”

Bruce was take aback by the sudden turn of events. He knew that Cat could kill, he had seen her do it so many time before, but never with such cruelty. “Selena... Kitten, please don’t!”

The light surrounding her flaired, and tiny rocks and debris started to fly around her in a swirling maelstrom “DON’T YOU DARE CALL ME THAT!” Lightning flew from her fingertips and coursed over his body, tossing him back. He managed to stand but his cape caught fire as did his vestments. The gloves and shoes he wore melted and burned him, but still he stood up to the energy that covered him from head to toe.

“Stop, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“But I want to kill anyone that would dare to get between me and those I love.”

Bruce summoned a protective ward and while it lasted he took off his helm. “But you are.”

Cat’s power faltered, and flickered as she saw the face of the man in her husband’s armor. ‘It was a trick... Just like they did with Clown... They captured Bruce!’ She stoped her attack, and ligted the man in the air. “What have you done with my husband?” If anything her eyes were wilder, but Bruce saw his opening. 

“Take off his mask.” He pointed to where the body of the man that looked like Bane lay in its awkward position. A gesture from Cat and the armor was ripped from the body. The ogre-like body of the elf once know as Clown was a mess, but she could still recognize the former thief that she had trained. 

“His identity doesn’t change yours.”

“Take off my mask then.” She tried, and by all the gods above, and the demons below, it hurt, but he didn’t move. His vision was going red when the pain stopped. So had she...

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?” She hovered frozen in place, and he gently set her down on the ground. “LET ME KILL YOU!!!”

“Umm.. No.” He looked at the terror, and hatred in her eyes and knew that something had... He dodged Isis as she jumped for him. A quick flick of his wrist and one of the pouch from his waist opened into a huge net, and it entangled the familiar as it tried to go for his throat. “Sorry Isis, this is for your own good.” He tossed the contents of a vial of liquid at the frenzied familiar and the liquid inside the net. The cat slumped down to the ground and was asleep in seconds. A second vial was soon dousing his wife and he tensed once more.

“LET ME kill.. ..you...” The flames around her died away, but her eyes didn’t lose the anger they held. “You came up with a continency plan in case I ever turned against you?”

“I even have a plan in case Alfred did.”

“Should I ask?”

Bruce didn’t even let his mind wander to the suit of very heavy armor that Robin, and Fox had designed with Cobblepot’s help. “No.”

The anger in her eyes waned slightly. “So our rings are enchanted... What happens if you try to attack me?”

The singed and still smoking knight and lord of Wayne Keep looked at her with his best deadpan stare. “Do I look that stupid?”

She knew that her smile was his answer, but she sighed and answered anyway. “Good answer, now will you let me go?”

“Promise not to kill me?”

“Maybe...” She looked at the hurt expression on his face and relented. “Okay, I promise.” She found herself freed of the enchantment. “I still love you, but if you ever...”

“I have to. You know that duty is my life.”

“You’d put duty before us?”

The slight smile he had vanished. “I put duty before everything, even myself.”

Her hand caressed his face. “Damn your duty, we have to save lives now. Maybe even our children’s.” 

It had been minutes since Crow, Corona and Alfred had landed on the floating island and looked at the forces arrayed against them. And in that time the Goons had formed a wall around the dome of water. Alfred had spotted dozens of Goons still inside it “You know those are the missing fishermen.”

“Yes Alfred, I know... What I don’t know, is why they haven’t attacked.”

“Well Master Jason, they are obviously waiting for us to make the first move.” Crow looked at the dragon and he was sure that Alfred was trying to teach him something, but whatever it was was alluding him.

“They want use to make the mistake of getting too close to that dome. If I was Jester, I would have traps all over this island.”

Crow was still trying to get used to the golden hue that Corona’s skin, and hair had taken when she was given some of Alfred’s dragon blood; but he was beyond amazed at how perceptive she had become. Then she pointed with her hands and lightning bolts ate up the ground in front of the semi-undead forces in front of them and he knew that she was still the incredibly impulsive woman that he had fallen in love with.

The ground erupted with geysers of dirt and stones. The explosions were far more powerful than could have been explained by the lighting bolts though. When everything calmed down, they noticed that exposed tunnels ran all over the field. Alfred looked down into the trenches that the tunnels had become. “They must have mined the field to trap us.” He noticed the remains of barrels of oil and empty bags of fertilizer. “Jester must have made Farmer’s Folly.”

“That makes a strange kind of sense. That stuff is so dangerous that dwarves won’t even use it to mine anymore. Dear, would you be so kind?”

“But of course Darling.” Corona hovered over the battlefield and let loose with a fusillade of lightning bolts, and fireballs. Goons, and the terrain below them, soon became intermixed and indistinguishable. 

He noticed that Clown and Harlequin, on the other hand, were protected by a mage shield of some sort. His bow was in his hand and a very special arrow was flying almost in the same motion. The arrow hit the magic barrier and discharged its own spell. The second arrow to follow passed right through where the barrier had been. Clown knocked it out of its path with one of his swords, but by that time they knew that their defenses were down. Both of them dived for what ever cover they could find, and that when Crow noticed something. They weren’t fighting together, they were actually moving apart. That never happened. “Corona, take Harlequin, Alfred take the Goons, leave Clown to me.”

“As you wish master Jason.” The dragon descended towards the waiting army of slaves and instead of belching out a gout of flame, he cast Mass Turn Undead upon the semi-dead goons, and some of them turned and fled towards the relative safety of the water dome. A Mass Remove Curse spell actually caused a few of the goons to fall down, and not get up. He would have to see if they were still alive after the battle was over, but he would be glad to not to kill innocents. He canted his wings until he slowed down. They beat hard enough for him to hover over the battle field, and he looked for a place to land. It was that moment of caution that saved his life. Out of the ground shot a form he had thought long dead; and he noticed in an off wing way, that he wasn’t entirely wrong. The undead monstrosity that erupted from the ground had at one time ben a white dragon, now he didn’t know what it was.

As the dirt and debris feel from the semi-frozen corpse of a white dragon, Alfred figured out what, or rather who, he was seeing. “Everfrost...” The corpse-like dragon shambled out of the ground and tried to roar. Tried, but failed, as his mouth was still full of dirt, and ice worms that froze the ground where they landed . He shook his head, and tried again. This time the blast of cold could be felt by all. Wherever the dragon stepped, the ground froze, and icy spikes shot up around his feet.

“Who is that?” Corona’s course was changed when the dragon erupted from the ground. She dived under the icy cone that erupted from his mouth.

“Not now child, focus on Harlequin!” Alfred didn’t have time to explain how Everforst had at one time been the oldest and evilest of the Great White Wyrms. He had lain waste to vast stretches of the far northern countries. He had been famous for.... “Stay away from the water!”

As if on cue the bubble of water burst and started to flow outward at a fantastic rate. Clown had managed to jump up on a massive rock, while Harlequin was climbing a tree when the wave course over where they had been standing. The Goons didn’t fare as well. The wave swept most of them off their feet, and the rest were the lucky ones that were on higher ground. They only got their legs wet. As did Everfrost. Where the water met his legs, it froze, and the ice spread out from him quickly. The goons that were swept off their feet were soon frozen in the ice, but the standing one met a far worse fate. The ice crept up each one and slowly covered them where they stood. Even the healing ability of the Goon’s cursed masks was no match for the slow death that befell them. The rock that Clown stood upon sprouted icy spikes, but he was safe from the deadly ice itself. The tree that Harlequin chose on the other hand was not so lucky. The ice slowly claimed it, and that forced the elven archer to drop her bow, and focus on her climbing. She was not only running out of tree, she was running out of time.

She looked up to see the last thing she wanted to see. Corona was hovering there with her hands glowing. “Finish me.” She looked down at the creeping ice that was inching it’s way up tthe trunk of the tree. “Hurry, I don’t want to die that way.”

What her foe said surprised her. “What if I saved you?”

“What?”

“You don’t have to die.” Harlequin looked into the flying woman’s eyes and saw mercy there. She remembered mercy, but never expected to see it in her enemy’s eyes. Her hands stopped glowing, and she held them out.

“You can’t.” Harlequin touched the necklace that Jester gave her. He had told her that it would protect her from the water’s effects, but that it would kill her if she let herself get caught.

“Why not?”

“This... thi...” She found her mouth unable to say the words, and her hands unable to point to the necklace. She suddenly felt terror when corona’s hair and skin glowed along with her hands. She knew she was going to die by the succubus’ hand and she was actually okay with that considering the alternative. She drew her swords so that she wouldn’t die a coward’s death.

It was because she was holding her swords that she nearly fell out of the tree when Corona blasted the tree below her. She dropped her swords and grabbed onto the branch in front of her. She watched in awe as Corona grabbed the treetop and carried it away from the icy land below. She dropped the tree into a patch of shrubs and Harlequin had to hold on for dear life lest she wind up in the brambles.

She wound up dazed and unable to even stand up, so she was unprepared for the sudden attack from behind. She tensed up, but to her surprise she was being embraced by two strong arms. She felt the tingle from Jester’s necklace start to spread and knew that if it... It stopped.. She felt her whole body tingle as every bit of magic was strained from her, and in it’s place was a sense of lethargy that she was finding hard to resist. “Sleep, don’t fight it...” Was the last thing she heard before the ringing in her ears drowned out everything. If this was death, then she would at least die peacefully in Corona’s arms.

Corona stood up from the limp body of the assassin. She knew that the elf had killed far too many innocent people to go without some form of punishment. She turned to see how the battle was going and knew that the poor elf would probably spend decades in Wayne Prison, but she would live.

Crow landed on the massive rock that ‘Clown’ had climbed upon. “So who are you? You don’t move like Clown, you left Harlequin’s side, and more to the point she left yours.”

Franky pulled Clowns swords out and tried to twirl them around. “Well bird boy, we am your worst nightmare.” Crow had to dodge as one of the swords went flying by him. “Well look what you did.” “It wasn’t my fault, you hit it with your sword.”

Crow’s blade quickly disarmed Franky of the remaining sword. “No, really who are you under Clown’s mask? That was pitiful swordsmanship.”

“Jester calls us Franky.” Frank moved closer to Crow who stood his ground. When he was face to mack with the much smaller Crow he took off his mask. “We guess you could call us Two-face.”

“Uncle... Uncles?” Jason was shocked to see the last two faces he expected. He had known Thomas Wyane only a few months before his death ,but his picture was hanging in the main hall and Harvey Dent had been his tutor as a child. The face that leered at him with such malice was a patchwork of their faces roughly split down the middle. Mismatched ears and quilt-patterned hair marked him as one of Jester’s strange constructs more than anything else.

“Yes, they were the bodies he used. But I am so much more. Give ‘Unky’ a hug!” The giant moved faster than Crow had expected. Jason found himself locked in a bearhug that even his enhanced strength couldn’t break. With that avenue out he tried to drain the creature’s energy. That’s when he got his next shock. He felt a burning sensation and was suddenly far weaker than he had ever felt before. “Sorry Junior, that trick won’t work. Jester figured one of you would try that.” Jason looked down to see the unholy symbol glowing on Frany’s chest. “I’m rubber, you’re glue. What ever you try bounces off and “ Crow and Franky were both tossed back by the blast that separated them.

Crow staggered to his feet and looked at the burnt corpse in front of him. He was surprised to hear laughter coming from Franky. “Did one of us teach you that?”

“No, I read it in a book.”

“Nice... Get back kid we’re starting to heal, and you don’t want to be within arm’s reach when we do.” Crow moved back and looked for his sword. It was covered in ice on the frozen ground, but one of Clown’s swords was still nearby. The question was which one.

The swords clown used could cause him harm just hold them if he grabbed the wrong one. He never knew if he would be harmed by the blessed sword, or the bane sword due to his condition. The blessed sword would harm any vampire it touched, but the bane sword would hurt any person that had good in their... hearts.... He reached for the sword only for a hand to grab his leg and lift him into the air.

“You should have taken it. We dropped those on purpose. They hurt too much to hold on to, and we don’t hold on to things that hurt.” Crow was flung against the rock hard enough to break a mortal’s bones. Luckily his body was far more durable than a mere mortal’s. The blow merely stunned him. But he didn’t have a chance to recover; Franky swung him around and slammed him on to the ground once more. “You are a tough little bird. We like that.”

“So do I.” He had grabbed the sword as he landed, and he swung it at his assailant’s chest. The blade sunk all the way into Franky’s chest.

Franky looked at blade sticking out of their chest and laughed. “That stings. Did you think that would hurt us?”

“No, just distract you long enough for another uncle to get in position.”

“Oh Fu..” The rest of whatever Franky was about to say way lost as they vanished in the familiar flash of a teleport spell. In his place was pillar of ice that looked oddly appropriate all thing considered.

“Where?”

“To see some old friends.” Franky started to shiver, but it wasn’t the cold that made them do so. Harvey knew Victor Freeze, and they had both watched Jester freeze the two alchemists. Appearing in a cell next to the icy tomb of the two alchemist meant that they were somewhere that Jester couldn’t find them, and even worse than that... They were trapped with two bodies that would be coming back to life right about...

 

Alfred fired off a blast of holy energy that ripped the last vestige of Everfrost’s unlife from its cursed body. The undead white dragon seemed to crumble to snow, armor, and bone, as the light faded from its eyes. 

Down in Wayne Keep, Lord Wayne and Lady Wayne exited the keep’s baliey decked out in their best armor, and surrounded by every knight and armsmen that still could stand. More than a few of them were still in the tender mercies of clerics and other healers. They would follow as soon as they could but for now they need to get to the bay. The Wayne wagon and the Wayne Chargers, all mage powered mechanical marvels, were being tasked to get them to Cobblepot’s ship, as it was the only ship left in the bay that could still set out. 

Bruce was still trying to get his mind around the reports that were coming in. Coming in by runner at that. Every scrying device was bedeviled in some manner to show Jester’s sigil. Anyone that tried to dispel it would up destroying the device and possibly themselves in the process. Now the report of a flying island coming to rest in the bay. This was an invasion, and he had sent runners to every ally they had to ask for aid. He just hoped that they either didn’t need it, or that it arrived in time.

Cobblepot was still wearing his Penguin armor since a gnome in a fight like this would probably need all the help he could get. He was standing on the prow of the Angry Duck, and watching the island gently floating down to the bay. “Oh fishsticks!”

“What is it father?” Renee had calmed down in more ways than one. She stood between Cobbepot and Robin, but he noticed that she no longer stood ‘between’ them any more. Her hands on each of their shoulders made them more than just a team once more. Inside his armor he smiled. Come what may, he had raised them well. 

“It looks so gentle. When that wave hits the shallows it’s going to be huge.” He motioned to one of the deckhands. “Ready the Angry Duck.” He looked back to where Robin and Renee stood. “We my have to fly your father over there.” 

“You stole my brother’s idea?’

Cobbelepot laughed at his niece. “No my dear, I made it better.” He waved a hand and Alice the wind mage summoned her familiars. The air elementals looked for all the realm like rabbits, but they were made of elemental energy. They quickly jumped to each spar and waited for the wings to unfurl. They jumped on the wings and merged with the wings which started to flap wildly until Alice calmed them down, and focused them. He watched as Lord Wayne and his entourage came onboard. “My lord, and Lady...” he bowed in his suit with a flourish that most men couldn’t manage without one.

“Mr. Cobblepot, you never cease to amaze me. Has our daughter been giving you any trouble?” Oswald laughed at the joke. Ever since he had ‘rescued’ their daughter, he had been vied as a part of the family. With that came a certain change in lifestyle. He may have had to give up his life of piracy, but his new life was not only one worth living, it was one worth dying for.

“Well she was asking me a bunch of questions. But since you’re here...” He gestured to one of the other ladies that made up his crew. She walked over to the massive wheel on the main deck. She pushed the wheel, and when Lord Wayne gestured to the other men to help her she motioned them away. She flexed her arms and the muscles seemed to grow as she set her feet against the deck. “Sorry guys, Lacy doesn’t like help.”

“Are all your crew women?” One of the men at arms asked.

“Yes son, all of my birds are. And if you even think of trying anything, just remember that they are my crew, and that I won’t let anyone on my crew that can’t hold their own. Lacy can crush you in your armor. So behave yourself, or someone might ‘accidently’ knock you overboard.”

“I can swim.”

“But can you fly?” He motioned over the side, and the man paled as he realized that they were airborn.

“Sirs!” If the man could have gone any paler he would have. Everyone rushed over the edge. They watched as the wave that was approaching the city froze. The water in the bay was freezing faster than a horse could run, and it was expanding, causing a wall of ice to form in front of it. The ice itself was rising as well. The swell from the displacement was causing the water level at the shore to rise. It had soon overflowed the docks and was moving into the lower areas of the city proper. 

Lord Wayne watched as his people moved the populace back while they closed most of the siege gates.

Man-at-arms Gordon closed the doors to limit the damage the storm surge and watched as the last of the civilians were moved up to the highest levels of the town. The water of the bay would soon drain back out, and he knew that many of the people would soon be complaining about the mess. Barbra walked up to stand beside him. “Copper for your thoughts?”

“Isn’t that my line?” He smiled at her attempt to cheer him up. The report about Man-at-arms Bullock had left a bad taste in his mouth. The runner that had gone up to Bullock’s place had found the nearly burned remains of his library and absolutely no trace of him.

“Normally it would be, but these are not normal times.” Her eyes suddenly glowed for a second, and the voice she used was not her normal one. “The dead will rise, but they will be cold as the grave.” When her eyes resumed their normal appearance she looked to her father. “All my spells have just been replaced with Raise the Dead. The Goddess is warning us.” Her bow and arrows were never out of reach, and she hadn’t unstrung them since the trouble started.

James looked at his daughter and wished that her mother had lived to see how their daughter had turned out. She had died in childbirth and had only heard her daughter’s cry once before she passed. He swore to protect her as best as he could, and now she was an Oracle. As the voice of a Goddess she was also thrust into danger, and he often found his loyalties pull in many directions. Tonight they were in alinement for once.

He was scanning the marketplace when the water seeped into it through the siege doors. The pile of dead bodies in the center probably didn’t care, but he felt bad for just leaving them there. If they got a chance they would have to try and raise as many as they could. He just wished he knew where Bullock’s body was.

Mime oozed down into the cavern she knew that this caver was now underwater and that if she left Harvey here he would die no mater what happened. She about the other man that was imprisoned on this island, and she knew that she was supposed to protect both of them. But due to Jester’s curse she couldn’t go against either order. So she had to decide which one to save first. The curse chose for her though and she picked up the fisherman. She unfolded his prison and the glow from the warding glyphs lit up th e room bright enough to see by.

Harvey had been able to see ever since Clown had died. He had felt the man’s death, but had been powerless to do anything but stand there in the dark. Now he could at least see what was going on. The strange blue light showed Mime flowing around another man inside the small chamber they had been hidden in. Soon he was all alone and that’s when he felt the protection ward start to fade. Why had she done that? She should know that if she did that he would die of suffocation... She was attacking him on purpose! He fought the holding spell with all his might, and he could almost feel it giving.

The Angry Duck flew over the frozen bay and towards the island in the middle. Lord Wayne stood on the prow, gazing down he could see the island and the ship in the middle. The frozen water that seemed to flow out from the dead dragon’s disintegrating corpse. Alfred, Crow and someone that looked rather familiar stood upon a rock outcropping with a body draped over her shoulder. They advanced towards the outcropping he realized that the woman was Corona. “Curiouser and curiouser...”

“What is it my love?” Cat and Isis stood beside him. She pulled out her spyglass and trained it on the sight before them. “The bodies are frozen. Why did he make so many and then sacrifice them like that?”

“Exactly.”

Gordon watched as the water flowed over the bodies in the market. Some of them might be swept away. He wished that they could have hazarded sending someone out there, but after what happened with the rain, they knew that the very water itself might be cursed. He was just glad that Mr. Blank and his ‘associates’ had managed to join them on the defenses. The poor man looked beat nearly to death but he was still standing. The ladies had been holding him up as they walked up the street. He looked back to the market, and that was when he noticed the ice creeping up the streets.

Alfred watched as the winged ship approached the island. He was proud of how the Waynes had come about. From warriors to leaders to rulers. He knew that he was doing a good job at raising great nation here. “Excuse me?” A voice brought his attention to a face that seemed to from out of the very stone he was standing on. “You’re standing on me.”

“Wha..” A coldness started to creep into his toes, and soon they were covered in ice. “OH dear!” Alfred froze solid faster than he could even attempt a counter spell.

Crow and Corona had noticed the face and jumped into the air, but Alfred’s mass was too much to move that fast so Jester had struck him first.

Lord Wayne watched as his oldest, and dearest friend was frozen in an instant. “NO!” He jumped over the edge, and the wings on his suit spread out like the wings of a bat. The featherfall spell slowed his fall, and the wings allowed him to glide to the ground, and when he did the sword Azrael was in his hand. A vial flew from his hand and smashed against the rock. Alchemical energy flowed out from the vial and coursed out to the edge of the rock upon which he stood. 

Jester jumped out of the rock and landed on his hands and did a flip. When he landed he brushed off the fire that had started on his suit. “Well that was rude, but I guess I deserve that.”

“Why are you doing this?” Lord Wayne advanced towards the clownish figure.

“Would you believe it’s because I was bored?” A quick somersault and a jump and Jester was standing on Alfred’s tail. His body seemed to defy gravity, and probably was aided by magic as he used Alfred’s as a balancing beam.

“No.” The bat wing decorated daggers fly towards Jester; only for him to vanish into thin air.

He reappeared behind the Dark Knight. “You got me, I just wanted to pay you back for sending me to that dreadfully dull place.” He danced out of the way when Crow’s arrow flew through the spot he had just been standing in.

“And just how did you escape that?”

Jester laughed and dodged Corona’s blasts, only to be hit by Cat’s lightning bolts. “Oh that tickled!”

Lord Wayne swung Azrael and its flaming blade made contact with jester and cut him in two. Both parts fell to the ground and he looked at his legs. “Well, I seem to be beside myself.” He vanished, and reappeared reattached and apparently unharmed. Even his singed suit was clean and pressed. “Much better. NOW!” he held up his hands and pulled back his sleeves to reveal not only empty sleeves, but a lack of arms as well. “As you can see...” Each hand flew off and attacked a different person. On attacked Crow while the second attacked not Corona but the unconscious Harlequin that she was still carrying. Crow managed to skewer the glove with his sword while Corona blasted the one headed her way into ribbons.

Cat fired off a fireball into Jester’s face, and he simply opened his mouth and ate it. “OH that had a kick to it!” He tapped his chest with gloves that seemingly reappeared as soon as they had been damaged. He then opened his mouth and belched it back out. Everyone jumped out of the way, but Lord Wayne simply stood his ground. The flames coursed over him and still he stood there. The sword he held in front of him simply absorbing them, and his armor glowing not with the heat, but with the light of it’s enchantments. He pulled another item off of his belt and pushed the button and the flame ceased as did the glow from his armor. He swung his sword and this time jester wasn’t quite able to dodge in time. The sword bit into him and he flinched back in pain. Instead of bleeding tough his body seemed to shrivel. “Well that won’t do. You’re fighting fair!” 

He turned and ran off into the icy ground. And as he fled crackling could be heard from the ice. Bruce turned around as the crackling came from behind him as well.

Victor looked out to where Gordon was pointing. He saw it as well. In fact, he saw it far better. His mask was showing the enchantment that was covering the ice, and what it was doing to the bodies that were slowly climbing up from the pile. “Connie, do you think you can lend a hand here, or do you want to protect the civilians?” 

“Were you go we follow. I’m not letting you get yourself lost again.” Point and ponder nodded in sync with each other.

Paula looked out of her window and saw the first of the bodies start to stand up and by the looks of their frozen corpses she knew these weren’t normal zombies. Cryozombies were the nightmare of every warrior and dungeon crawler. They didn’t die easily and even their bodies could cause the contagion. Returning them to normal was something that was neither easy, nor guaranteed.

“Felix your skills are about to be tested once more, but you are not quite ready.”

“You and your riddles. Are you going to send us into your closet to rest again?”

“No this takes a slightly more drastic step.” She waved her hand over the floor, and a blue cabinet rose up out of the floor. Panels on its side glowed with mystic energy and the doors opened on their own. 

“That is way too small for all of us.” Ricky looked inside and Mutt sniffed the doorway. Mutt walked in and vanished. “Hey where did he go?”

“If you go inside you will find out.”

“Well this wardrobe seems to be full of surprises.”

“Oh you have no idea.” Paula watched as one by one they walked into the temporal portal disguised as a wardrobe.

A much older Felix was the first to exit. His armor looked well worn and polished, but he came up to her and grasped her as a friend. “It has been so long!”

“Longer than you know, and less than you think.”

“Still with the riddles!”

“She always was one for riddles.” Michele threw off her hood and stood in her royal vestments once more. At Paula’s questioning look she held up a finger. “Spoilers!” That alone told her that she had met them in the future, and told them about the dangers of careless tampering with the timeline. 

A man in dark robes walked out of the doors and bowed to Paula. Michele put her hand on Clarence’s shoulder and spoke for him. “He has taken a vow of silence as penance for begetting a few too many offspring in the future.” She smiled a very wicked smile. “Something about his mouth getting him in trouble.”

Rafael didn’t walk through the door so much as he seemed to flow through the doors and hugged Paula in a manner that seemed a little too friendly. “You do not... No.. You wouldn’t yet... I still hate time travel, but our... your...” He shrugged. “Spoilers!”

She looked for Ricky as Mutt came out. Mutt looked up at her with far too intelligent eyes and smiled as he shifted into a halfling. “Hi there toots. Been a while. I forgot how big it was in there. Long story short...” He looked over at his friends. They were looking at him with varying looks of disgust. “Well SHE hasn’t heard it yet! I had to join with Mutt to save us both.”

“I know. I’ve always known. You were heros in my time. I idolized you so much that I came back here to see the world you lived in. I never thought that I would be the one that sent you back.”

“Yeah, about that... That was kept from you.” Rafael smiled his famous smile. Michele just shook her head.

“I figured that out the moment you came in my door.” She looked at the heros of her childhood and then to the door. “History does not tell how you die. It was probably done to protect the timeline. I need to send you out that door.”

“We know. Doska..” Rafael kissed her once before he walked out the door.

“Janet... My armor. They are not going out there alone.”

“Ma’am... What did he just say to you?”

Paula literally floated off the ground. “He just called me his wife.” 

 

Jester didn’t let it show but that sword had hurt him more than he had expected. He had been forced to activate his zombie-cicles. He only had a few cards left to play, but they were doozies. First cars first...

Mime put the fishman in his cage deep in the cavern under the sea. She felt sorry for the poor man and wished that she could do something to help him. Just the thought brought her pain as her curse prevented her from helping him in anyway. Any way, any way... The ground was littered with the bones and possession of Jester’s previous victims. A coin stuck to her foot as she started to pass through the wall. It was inside her leg when she exited the cavern. She stopped for a second as she received a message fom her master. Jester had no more need for their other guest. She was to dispose of him in any way she wanted.

Lord Wayne swung his sword at the zombie and watched it vanish in a burst of flame. He stood back to back with his wife as they wiped out zombie after zombie but they still came. The Angry Duck was raining fire down upon the outliers and any that threatened the Duck.

Lord Wayne pulled out the scroll that Oracle made for him and lit it on fire by saying the activation word. The fire surrounded the heros and slowly expanded from them. Where the flames touched the cryozombies they burned with holy flames. Some survived, but most were consume in the fires. 

“Oh, Dear?” That Cat’s quip was a subtle echo of Alfred’s last words was not lost on Bruce. He turned to see the massive ice-covered gold dragon explode into the dapper batman that they had known for so long.

“I’m sorry Lord Wayne... I was not myself there for a while.” 

“Are you all right?”

“I do feel a bit drained.” He looked up to see Cobblepot’s ship floating above him. “Maybe more so than I thought?”

Crow flew down and picked up the dazed dragon. “Let me help you for once.”

“If you wish Master Grayson...” He was in the air before he could finish.

Lord Wayne looked around at the various knights and men-at-arms that remained. They made a formidable force, but they were only slowly making a dent in the enemy. “It’s not knocking them down...”

“It’s making them stay down.” Cat fired off a fireball that incinerated a dozen zombies only to watch as another dozen advanced to fill in the gap. Archers to her left flank took down half of them only to watch them stand right back up.

Corona had dropped the unconscious body of the assassin on the deck of the Duck and rejoined the fray, firing off blast after blast and to her consternation never running out of targets. She watched Crow carry his mentor and friend up to the ship and she watched his back while he did. That’s why she noticed the red and black form that was flying their way.

Jason lowered Alfred to the deck and looked over to see Robin and Renee carrying a large barrel. “Is that what I think it is?”

Renee nodded, her Blank mask hiding any expression she might have. “Your father prepares for everything.”

He thought to his current unlife status, and realized that he had even planed for that in his own way. “More than you know.” He looked at the pale figure he had rescued. “I’ll leve him to you Robin. When you two are done, we could use your swords down there though.”

“Father is letting me use his bow.”

“I thought I recognized some of those arrows out there. Keep up the good work then.”

“Big brother?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t be a Trog!” Jason held up his hand in mock surrender. She had always been his little sister, and he was still having a hard time seeing her as an adult.

“You’re right.” He looked over the side. “Just be carful you never know what..”

“JASON! Look out!” Crow made the mistake of looking towards Corona and missed the red and black blur that hit him from behind. He tumbled with Mime across the deck and disentangled himself from her as they rolled. The gold coin rolled across the deck and landed at the feet of Cobblepot.

Miss Blank drew her sword and other joined her to defend Crow as he stood up. He held up a hand to ward them off. “This fight is mine.” He turned to his sister and left his sword sheathed. “Why are you here?”

Mime’s body shimmied and her face looked like Bullock’s for a second before she seemed to writhe in pain. Her arms became wicked looking claws that she slashed at Jason. He jumped back easily. “What are you trying to tell me... Alice.” Saying her true name was a gamble, but one that paid off when her mask actually cracked. “Alice!” He yelled as she dove overboard, and flowed into the ground below. He ran towards the side of the boat but she was already gone.

Renee put her hand on his shoulder. “I saw her face.”

“What?”

“Normally, all I can see is her mask; but this time I saw her face. She was crying. And what’s more I saw a phylactery in her chest.”

“What, how?”

“I think she let me.”

Captain Cobblepot walked over to them with the coin in his hand. “I don’t think that was the only thing she let us see.”

“It’s corroded and has a tiny barnacle on it. So we have a coin that was underwater. What does that tell us?”

Alfred put down the, now empty, barrel of healing potion, and smiled. “It means that we need to go see an Oracle.” He motioned to Renee. “I have a mission for you.”

Lord Wayne looked up as he noticed the sound of a teleport. Soon after he noticed Renee jump off of the Duck and descend towards them using one of her father’s umbrellas. Another umbrella spit fireball after fireball to clear the way as she landed. He had to hand it to the gnome, he was an excellent artificer. “Message from Alfred, sir.”

“Go on...” He listened and nodded. “And here is what you and the Duck are going to do...” He gave her detailed instructions and waited for her to climb the line back to the Duck. The ladies of Captain Cobblepot’s crew threw lines over and soon the wounded and men-at-arms were pulled up, and moving off to reinforce the city. That left Lady and Lord Wayne, their knights as well as Corona to fight the rapidly dwindling number of zombie goons remaining on the island.

 

Back in the city the defense of the city center had left the streets covered with frozen blood, the rare but rarely intact bodies, and now ever present and unmeltable ice as the defenders held the cryozombies back time and time again. Oracle had had to cure the numerous defenders that were touched by the zombies as they were slowly overwhelming them. Point and Ponder had pulled Connie back when she had taken a blow from one of their own when he turned into a zombie as she was trying to heal him. The poor man had been cured, and he died to defend her in penance, but the damage was done. Her own cure had taken it’s toll on her, and now she was weak and feverish. That was a common reaction to the touch of the zombies. Any person that could survive the attack would be too sickened to do anything to defend themselves from further attacks. The defenders had already fallen back to the keep. If they couldn’t they would have to hope that the walls would hold long enough against the creeping cold that was the zombies other attack. Already wooden doors and walls had proved to be no defense against them.

The sudden appearance of two people behind her nearly caused her to fire off a holy burst at them before she dropped to her knee. “Get up Barbara, we don’t have time for that!”

“Yes your Grace!” The gold dragons had always been sacred allies of the Goddess and as such they were viewed as walking holy relics.

And this walking relic was holding out a real relic. “I need you to where find this has spent the last few years.” At her uncomprehending look he smiled. “It is a clue to where the Jester is hiding something.”

She took the coin in her hand and let the spirit of the Goddess work through her. She saw a vision of a dark chamber with water dripping inside. She was about to say something when a hand on her shoulder stopped her. In a flash she and her father disappeared along with Alfred and Jason.

Down in his lair, Jester retrieved his sword. It was a rather interesting sword. It carried a magic field around it that negated an anti-magic field’s ability to hamper his own magic. “Mime! I need you!” Mime appeared behind him. He noticed the still bound man-at-arms and the cage with the fisherman sitting there and smiled. “So you are going to let your toy starve to death with my soul box just out of reach. You are becoming quite good at this. I guess I am a good teacher after all. Now I need to kill a kitten and a bat. This game has gone on for far too long. You are to stay here and protect my little gift to you. 

It had been a gambit to stretch herself like that. She had split her self in two and she was glad that the other half of her had returned before Jester had. If he had been only a few seconds earlier he might have seen her other half return with his Soul Jar. Harvey was safe and so was the other man. All she had to do now was wait.

She didn’t have to wait long. She felt the appearance of the others when they materialized inside the lair. The wards that Jester had put in place would spring the various traps he had set in motion. Just as she planned.

The sound of something moving in the darkness was all the warning that Harvey got. The defensive spell was out of his lips before he even thought about it. The glowing barrier revealed five dire wolves surround him. Five zombie dire wolves. He laughed as he remembered that his mother told him that nature was not cruel, it simply was. The true evil came when it was messed with.

He tried to move and his arms seemed to respond. He tried once more. This time he managed to move slightly, and then the Hold spell was broken and he was free to move but only the dim light of the defensive spell was lighting the room at the moment, so he moves carefully in the uneven terrain. He tried to pry the mask off but t wouldn’t budge. He did notice that one of the zombie wolves went out of its way to not get near the cage the poor fisherman had been held in. He moved towards it and one of the wolves tried to get between him and it. His hand drew the warding glyph in the air and the zombie burst into flames. Ironically this gave him enough light to see out only the way to the cage, but the fact that the room’s only exit was currently covered in ice. He was in a choice of cages. No there wasn’t really a choice at all. He ran for the metal cage and jumped in. As he expected the bars shut on their own, but what he didn’t expect was the anti-magic feild that turned on when it was closed. He could hear only muffled sound through the mask that had suddenly become black. Sitting in darkness once more, he thought about his jailer. 

Today she had visited his prison not once but twice. The lantern in her had lit the room and it had given him a chance to see her once more. The first time she had only stayed long enough to pick up the other man and remove him in the same way she must have brought him here. They had just flowed into the wall like water into sand. 

When she returned she was different... The mask was the same, but costume she wore was very familiar. “Al...Alice?” She flowed to him so fast that he was sure that she was about to kill him; and in retrospect maybe that was the idea. She hugged him with an urgency that he felt in his core. 

The bailey had always been his favorite place to play and the walls were his favorite hiding spot from his mother’s pestering form him to do his studying. He was on the battlement the day a young girl was flying trough the trees. Her colorful costume made her movements standout like a flower in the dark branches. His jumped to one of the notches in the wall and hid himself in the shadows. With his spyscope in his hand and its limited feild of vision, he was watching her so intently that he never noticed the fact that the weren’t alone. 

It was when she was taking a break that he noticed the men. Two men were sneaking up on her. The first man’s rope snaked like it had a mind of its own and snared her leg before she even had a chance to see it.

She drew her dagger and was about to slice the rope that had entwined itself around her legs when the first one jumped out and pointed a rusty sword towards her.

Just because he couldn’t hear them, that didn’t mean that he did know what was happening. Those two were dressed like beggars, but they were obviously thieves... Or worse! He never went into the world without a weapon or two by his side, and his bow was in his hand and the first arrow on its way long before he thought about the consequences of his actions. He only knew that they were not going to hurt her.

Liko in the mage never knew what hit him. The arrow was launched with skill, but not with great strength, but sometime luck is more important. It penetrated his cloak and his chest before he could even shout a warning.

The next arrow was not quite as lucky. It landed between Niko and Alice. Niko looked over to see his twin brother fall with an arrow in his back and froze. That and the sudden release of the spell that was controlling the rope was all the opening Alice needed. The roped tanged Niko’s sword and her dagger found his chest.

Harvey was badly out of breath by the time he arrived at Alice’s side. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, it was a good thing you’ve been keeping an eye on me”

Harvey was glad that his face was flushed by his overexertion, or she would have seen him blush most furiously. “I.. I..” He looked at her smile, and realized that she didn’t seem to mind. “How?”

“Your spyglass kept flashing every time I passed the gap in the wall. I’m used to people watching us.”

“You.. WE?” He looked around furiously trying to see if anyone else was nearby.

“Yes... Um.. Can we do this somewhere where there aren’t dead bodies lying around.”

“Oh my! Oh my! Oh my! Oh my! Oh my!” Harvey could feel the sudden realization of what he had don fall upon him. “I just killed someone! I am in SO MUCH trouble!” 

She rushed over to where her would be hero was quickly hyperventilating. “Woah there! If you hadn’t then the next thing you would have watched would not have been nice for me... Or you! So just slow down and take some deep breaths and we will get the authorities.”

“I think that is well in hand.” The voice from the woods made Henry tense up even more than Alice. “You did good son.” Alice relaxed when the woman that came out from behind a tree had the Wayne Ranger crest on her cloak.

“How long have you been here mother?” At this it was Alice’s turn to tense up.

She pointed at the bodies. “I got a report about the twins being in the area and looked for the spot I couldn’t see.” 

Alice ran over to the body of Liko. “Don’t touch him! He probably has hexes on his items. They may protect them now, but they won’t last long. He usually had a necklace that he used to protected him against scrying.” She waved her pike over the body and numerous items started to glow. Most of them were faint but one was bright. “There, it is safe to touch.”

Alice pulled the cheep porcelain face on a leather cord off of the dead man’s neck. She handed it to Janice Bullock, but the woman only touched it once and motioned for her to keep it. “It’s your’s now. I can find it now that I’ve touched it, and if you want to remain in seclusion from prying eyes it might come in handy.”

“Mother!” 

“Oh I didn’t... mind...” In the time she had looked between the two, Harvey’s mother had disappeared. “Where did she...?”

“You get used to that.” Alice never did used to his mother’s habit of vanishing and reappearing, but they grew close after their families started visiting each other every time the Grayson’s passed through. He had been the one to find Jason on the street after the family had become the Jester’s first victims, and they had both cried bitter tears for them on the anniversary of that night for years afterwards.

Now he realized that Alice had been alive for all that time, but she had been Jester’s slave. He recognized the mask for what it truly was now. The talisman had become a part of her. It hid her and in someways it was protecting her. He wanted nothing so much as to rip the mask off and do something to help his friend... The love that flowed through him let him know that she felt the same. They were both trapped by masks.

Jester reappeared on the plain next to the ship and watched as the forces of the Wayne’s approached. The Knights of Wayne were well know as Lord Wayne’s best skirmishers. When a tough foe would attack their Lord they would bleed him until their lord could deliver the finishing blow. Well it was time to even the odds. He cast spells seemingly at random and the Knights used their own spells to deflect or absorb them. He watched them work as a team and build an interlinking defense with Lord Wayne commanding, and Lady Wayne acting as their heavy hitter. There were only a few of his frozen goons left so he activated his trap cards. Each Goon had been ‘Gifted’ with one of the rune inscribed cards on the inside of their masks. In between the spells he had cast were the segments of the curse that the cards were designed for. The bodies exploded into flowers. The petals slowly filling the air until visibility was limited to only a few steps away from each person. He dance out of the path of several arrows that came his way.

Sir Jacob had been a Knight for over ten years, and in that time he had seen death come in many ways. A stuffed animal that smothered his face, was not the one he expected, but it was the one he received. It covered his face and he found himself unable to breathe. He struggled for a few minutes until Sir Fredrick found him, and tried to remove the toy from his face. Not only was he unable to remove it, but he was soon struggling with a pink stuffed bunny of his own. They fell in seconds, as did the others caught so unaware. The fact that the silence spells that had been laughed at only moments before were concealing their death throws from the rest of the knights would not be lost on the survivors.

Sir Michael had his helm down, but it didn’t stop the lime colored elephant from oozing through the gaps and adhering to his face. He didn’t waste any time, he lit it on fire and closed his eye as it, and his prized beard, burned off. The flame burned the flower petals as well, revealing the death of the knights that surrounded them. The surviving knights quickly lit any torch or flaming weapon they had. 

Bruce pulled down his helm and watched as his wife did the same. Her armor still had the Cat styling it always had, but it also had the Wayne family crest superimposed on her symbol. Part of that symbol was a Breathe Without Air spell that she had just added. She hadn’t wanted to have to deal with any more of the Jester’s tricks. So when the stuffed dire mouse landed on her mask it was almost funny. A Touch of Flame spell and it was gone, but Bruce wished that his scrying sphere had been working. It was still in his belt, but... Only if he needed an explosive device.

Jester giggled as the first part of the trap caught a few knights, but was time. He drew a glyph in the air and the second part activated. He pirouetted and did a somersault as the entire cloud of flowers exploded.

Dozens of Knights fell in the first seconds, and they were not the lucky ones. There were no lucky ones as their bodies and the ones that died from the stuffed animals exploded as well. Another wave of death soon followed and the surviving knights ran to protect the Lord and Lady instead of finding the Jester. Some of them found a sword in their way as Jester blinked in front of them. They would then suddenly find themselves fighting shadowy versions of the Jester. Some realized they were fighting phantasms and the images faded, but others were soon lost to the fear inducing nature of the attack. Those that were unable to catch their friends could only watch as they fled the battlefield in terror. Their screams were suddenly cut off, and no one was sure how.

From the flash of energy behind him Harvey felt rather than saw the people arrive. He tried once more to remove the mask, but it was still firmly attached. He didn’t understand how it worked, but he could still feel Mime nearby. He turned around and was overjoyed to see his boss and his daughter along with... Sir Crow and Sir Alfred? He tried to warn them, but it didn’t matter as Sir Alfred simply waved an arm and all of the dire wolves crumbled to dust.

“No time for silly parlor tricks.” Alfred pointed his hand at the cage and the bars glowed.

When the glow subsided Sir Crow rushed forward and ripped the door off. “Come out here now Mime. We need to speak... or something. Do you know how...” He seemed to notice that Mime was not the only person in the cage and he drew his sword. “It’s a trap!”

Oracle stepped froward and held out her hand. “That is not the trap you think it is. Come on out Harvey, neither you nor Mime will be hurt.”

Harvey found his body moving without his command as Mime was still covering him. She had formed a shell around him and he felt something press against his chest. If that was what he thought it was... The feeling of pride sent his way confirmed his thought. She was trying to help them, but she was unable to do it actively.

Oracle held out her hand again, but this time to stop the others from attacking Mime. She was just as much a victim in this as the others. She tried to warn Crow but he leap forward faster than she could. His sword was in his hand and ready... No not his... The blade belonged to Tomas Wayne, his adopted father’s father. But that meant... She turned around to see her father holding Crow’s blade. Her father might have been one of the greatest swordsmen in the land, but in Crow’s hand the Saint Wayne’s blade would make him unstoppable if he could only withstand the pain he was going through. His hands were on fire as the blessed blade attacked his cursed nature. The vampire was taking the pain to free his sister.

Jester reappeared within the knight’s lines and stabbed two knights before vanishing again. The knights all stood back to back so that he couldn’t slip between then again. Lady and Lord Wayne were doing the same, and had in fact taught them all this trick. They had fought many a Blink Dog pack when they fought Dogman.

When he reappeared again he was wielding two swords and ignoring any attack as he sliced into the knights as if they weren’t even wearing armor. Jester was making fools of the knights as he practically walked through them. Lord Wayne knew that he would have to add paladins to the knight’s ranks if they survived. The Waynes fired crossbow bolts into him until he looked like a Voodoo Doll, and still he simply laughed his eerily laugh. Then in a flash it was all over. 

Lord Wayne cradled Selina in his arms as she shuddered for each breath. The last knight had fallen, and in his fall he had broken one of the Jester’s sword’s blades within him, but the demonic laughter hadn’t yet faded when Lord Wayne had noticed his wife’s ashen condition. When the sword broke it sucked all of the magic in the area up with it. Jester had already vanished by the time the pieces of the sword had hit the ground. All around him his barely surviving knights writhed in agony as their own innate magic was turned against them and killed them from within.

“Don’t leave me!” He reached for his bag of holding to find that all of his healing potions had vanished, and the bag was now a simple bag. He threw the bag to the ground in anger. He reached around his belt to see if any of his pouches might contain anything, but his wife’s hand stopped him.

“I may not have a choice in that, my love. Oracle can...” Her hand was in his as she faded and a tear feel down her unseeing eye as it let go of his. He held it longer than a heartbeat before he too let it go. The armor he wore was now useless, and all of his magic items were little more than junk. The clips, clamps, and straps that were designed for him to be able to remove the armor in a hurry, were quickly undone. Soon he was standing in little more than his doublet and cape. The bat sigil on the breast was a bright yellow that stood out against the black of the doublet. His hood was cut for his helm and it hung over his head rather oddly. The points for the helm’s horns stuck back instead of out to the side, and he knew that the next time the Jester returned he would be making fun of his favorite taunt. Calling him an officer’s servant was one thing, but he knew Jester was making a joke at the expense of the Wayne family’s crest. His sword was now oddly silent as the magic absorbing field that the Jester had used had negated its abilities. It couldn’t warn him, or help him move silently. His boots no longer helped him walk up walls, and his cloak was now simply a cloak. 

Alfred had trained him to work without magic, and he had always wondered why. Now he understood. This spell would have killed any creature of magic, and Dragons were creatures that breathed, sweated, and bled magic. Jester had planned this whole thing out to the last detail. The only thing he hadn’t planed for was...

Jester sat in his lair and looked at the fisherman. He smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes. He looked at all of the plans he had made and smiled. They were all going according to plan, and he was worried. Nothing ever went this well. He had stripped that fool of all of his magic items and now he was practically defenseless. Crow and the drangoon was about to plunge the entire kingdom into chaos, and he would finally free Mime from that stupid mask.

All Jason had to do was strike his sister, and the mask would be broken. Harvey needed to be there for his heart to be broken, and he had figured that Oracle would be the one to lead him there. He just hadn’t figured on Alfred being freed so soon. He was supposed to die whenthe blade’s curse was activated.

The mask Alice wore had been the real reason for all of this. And the big joke was the number of masks he had had to make to get rid of that one. Once it was gone, he would be able to control her forever. It was too bad that the Soul Jar she wore now wasn’t his. He looked at the soul jar in his hand and laughed. He made the two jars so similar that she had never noticed him switch them. Now when she tried to kill herself she would actually kill the innocent fisherman, and Harvey, whom she had tried so hard to save. He was just glad that Crow’s dark blade would destroy the body she now wore. The new one he had for her was so much better.

He looked at the empty shell of a simulacrum that he had created in Pandemonium. It was a beauty, and it looked exactly like she had looked the day she died. Now all he had to do was sit back and wait. That’s when the itching started.

Lord Wayne picked up the last of the fragments with his gloves. The metal shards of the blade were not even sharp, but they did burn his gloves. He put as many of them as possible into the bag of holding that had become an empty bag. He put that bag of holding into another bag of holding. Finally he pulled out his scrying mirror. It still was showing the sigil of the Jester so he knew that that spell was somehow still functioning. He pressed the sigil and tossed it inside as well. As he thought, the old spell seemed to be unable to activate inside the area of the new spell. An overhand toss and the bag-within-a-bag flew away from the center of the spell, and when it landed the sigil activated. The explosion ripped a hole in the dimensional barrier between the Prime, and Pandemonium.

The explosion knocked Jester to the ground. He grabbed the Soul Jar and set it down next to the body on the table. If BatMan came there, he could get to the Soul Jar and then he would die. Jester ran for the slowly shrinking opening and dove through.

Lord Wayne stood there as Jester dove through the glowing opening. He knew that anywhere that Jester hid, he wouldn’t want company, so opening a portal would get the villain to come to him. Jester drew another sword from between his hands and stood in his usually bad stances and waited for Lord Wayne to hit him. Wayne’s blade went straight for his chest and he didn’t even flinch when it sliced him clean through. He looked down at the blade and laughed. “Well, that tickled!” He swung his own blade wildly, missing Lord Wayne by over a yard.

Two bat shaped throwing blades hit him in the chest, where they exploded seconds later. The combined damage made a hole that Bruce could see right through. “Well, that was a blast.”

Lord Wayne simply frowned and pulled out his shield as he swung his sword. The shield quickly snapped into shape.

“Ha ha ha ha!!! I thought you didn’t want me calling you Bat Man?” The shield, a gift from Robin and built by Cobblepot had the Wayne Family crest on it as well. Lord Wayne swung again, and this time Jester did dodge. He did so by doing a double back flip. And by the time he had finished, the hole in his chest had already healed up. “Oh come on... Why are you always so somber?”

Lord Wayne’s sword went true and speared Jester through the chest. The blade stuck on one of his ribs and Jester jumped back. “Oh whoa is me! For I shall surely die! HA ha ha!” He stopped and stood there when Lord Wayne didn’t even smile. “Oh come on! What’s the matter, Cat got your tongue?” He dissolved into a fit of giggles until he noticed Lord Wayne’s smile. “Did I finally say something funny?”

“No you didn’t.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

“Look behind you.”

“Even I’m not about to fall for that gag.” 

“Suit yourself.” The Wayne Family sigil was once again lit on Wayne Keep. They would have only lit that if the zombies had been vanquished. 

Five minutes earlier Crow had run towards Mime with the intention of freeing her of her curse one way or another. What happened next surprised everyone. Harvey uttered the spell he never thought he would use on the prince. Hold... It didn’t work, but it slowed him down enough to let Harvey free himself enough to put himself between Mime and Crow.

Crow couldn’t stop the blade in time and he felt it slice into Harvey’s ample gut. The man went down, and Mime flowed around the wound to try and cover the wound.

Crow dropped the burning blade and looked at his hands. The wounds were already healing up, but he had harmed an innocent... Well Harvey... He dropped to his knees in shame.

Mime... Alice could feel the blood flowing out and she tried to staunch it but the magic nature of the blade meant that no wound made by it could be bound or healed by anything less than a True Wish.

A woman’s voice spoke in her ear. ‘Which would you rather have revenge on Jester, or for Harvey to live? Before you answer, just know this... One of the answers will cost you your life, and one your soul.’

She knew the answer and before she knew what was happening she felt her body melt away.

Harvey sat there with a very naked young lady in his arms and a very confused look on his face. A look that was mirrored by her brother who was sitting across from him. The same man that had just struck him with the Wayne blade. He should have by all rights have be dead but a woman’s voice had asked him which he would rather have: ‘His life without her, or her life without him.’ Somehow the woman had given him both. He was still trying to figure out what the little jar in his hand was.

Oracle’s eyes returned to normal and her father caught her before she slumped to the ground. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.”

Alfred walked over to Harvey. “May I have that?”

The stunned man-at-arms handed it over without question and used both arms to hold the woman he had thought lost. Crow handed him his cloak, which he draped around her. Crow offered to help him up, but he waved him off. “Don’t take this wrong sir, but I think you helped already. You needed to do that, or we wouldn’t be here.”

“I’m still sorry... I...”

“Sir!”

“Yes?”

“WE have her back. Isn’t that enough?”

“No.” They turned around to see Alfred take the jar and put it on the ground. He drew a runic glyph around the jar and waved his hands over it. It vanished in a flash. “Now it’s enough.”

“What was that?”

“A gift for Lord Wayne.”

Lord Wayne watched as the glowing circle formed next to him. Inside the familiar ring was an unfamiliar item. Unfamiliar to Lord Wayne, but not to Jester. He dove for the ring and bounced off of it. “Ouch!”

“You didn’t think I would let you get it that easy, now did you?”

“Frankly Waynely, you never did strike me as the sharpest blade.”

“Oh, do tell. That’s why you had to kill yourself to make yourself strong enough to go up against me. You have been a thorn in my side for years, but this time you went too far. You allied yourself with the Scarecrow to get your twisted revenge against Crow, and by extension me.”

Jester rested his hand on the hilt of the sword that was sticking out of his chest. “Now how did you figure out that?”

“You used one of his fear spells on my wife. And that rain was classic Scarecrow, and not even funny. No, the last funny thing you did was turning yourself into a litch.”

“Well I try.” Jester walked around the jar and kicked at the ring.

“No, you try my patience.”

“Hey, that’s funny!”

“No it’s not. But this is.”

“What?”

“Knock Knock?

“Who’s there?”

“Boo”

Jester’s smile faded. “Boo Who?”

“Don’t cry, that was the trigger word.” The ring slowly sunk into the ground, and with it went the jar.

Jester started to laugh. The belly laugh forced him to pull out the sword and use it to stand with as he was having trouble doing both. “You know what the best part of this is?”

“The fact that mime switched hers with yours?”

“What!” Jester dropped the sword and dove for the vanishing jar only to miss it by seconds.

“You didn’t see the Mask she left with it?” He had seen the tiny necklace under it, but he hadn’t put the two together in time.

“Where did you send it?” He suddenly felt weak. He tried to use his magic only to find that it had fled him. “What’s happening to me?”

“I sent it to a friend of yours. One that doesn’t take kindly to being double crossed.” Jester’s mouth opened wide and tried to say something but nothing came out. He watched Jester’s body fade away before he turned around to take care of his dead. When he had the bodies laid out, he waited for the Angry Duck to bring Clerics and healers. He pulled out his fire kit and lit a fire to keep him warm in the meantime.

 

The Duck Landed and Renee and Robin were the first ones on the ground. Robin ran to her mother’s body with Renee close behind. Renee was still looking around for the Cleric when Oracle and Alfred appeared in a flash. “Where’s Crow?”

“He’s with his sis... His other sister.”

“I thought she was...Wait! Did you use up your resurrection spell for today?”

“No, who needs it?”

“Lady Wa...” Oracle flew to where Robin and Lord Wayne were leaning over a prone body. “...yne... Um... Yeah.” She walked over and shook her head. “Today is just one of those days.”

“Tell me about it.” Alfred walked beside her, and for the life of her, she didn’t how long he had been there. 

“How many will we be able to bring back?”

“Not nearly as many as I would have liked. We just lost most of Gotham by the Sea in one day. We will need time for the wounds to heal, children to be born and to find others to move here.

“There’s a lot of damage. Jobs will be easy to come by.”

“As will crime and opportunities for our enemies to cause mischief on our borders. Jester did them a great service. Some of our best died today, and may not rise again. We need to do something to stop them.”

“My father may have something.”

“His ship is much better than Master Grayson’s was.”

“Not that. What if we make better roads and some sort of scheduled patrols.”

“That man never ceases to amaze me. I’m glad he is on our side now. I put that on you and Robin.”

“Thank you sir, but he had a good heart before us.”

“Yes but his thirst for revenge nearly made him a villain.”

“What of Jester? Did Mime... Um Alice, was it? What did she say about him?”

“That man was evil, through and through.”

“What happened to him? Lord Wayne couldn’t kill him, could he? And he has already escaped from Arkham once, so where did you send him?”

“Somewhere where he will be well looked after.”

In his Fun House in Pandemonium, Scarecrow sat in the chair on the ceiling and looked at his newest mirror and admired the image within. The drably dressed and silent man was frozen in mid scream. He had had such great hopes for Jester, but trying to steal from a demon was one of those little sins that should never go unpunished. 

He looked at his broken scythe. That blade had allowed him to go anywhere, and the blade would now need to be reforged. Maybe he would use the mirror to try the new blade out on. That might be a fitting punishment for Jack.

Renee put her mask back on and became the Blank once more. The vison it gave her was one of chaos and destruction. “What about all the zombies? Do you think we can bring them back?”

“Some might be saved, but most of them may be too far gone.”

“Then what about the Freezes?”

“They may not have become zombies. That trap was different.”

“How will you bring them back without causing the cruse to start all over?”

Alfred stopped for a second. She turned to look at the dragon in man form. “I don’t know. But I will have to look into it.”

The icy cavern contained two beings that used to be bodies and one body that used to belong to two beings. The former man looking down at the body in parts was covered in ice. A similar woman was standing over them. “Well?” His voice sounded flat, as if all warmth had been removed from it as well.

“How could you have done that! You ripped them apart!”

“They were combined badly. Another year or so and they would have died anyway.” 

She held up the scared coin, and owl shaped badge that had been the focus of the spell that kept the parts together. The badge had been wrapped around the coin and fused magically. Her voice was if anything colder than his when she tossed it to the frozen ground. “It was a hack job, no artistry, or skill beyond the minium required to ‘execute’ it.”

“Did you just make a joke?”

“Yes.” She walked over to her husband.

“How? I am unable to even feel, and you are making jokes.”

“You are lying to yourself again. The fact that you recognized a joke lets me know that you still feel.” She touched his lips with her finger. “Our bodies may be frozen, but not our hearts.” She reached up and kissed him, their frozen lips touching gently. “See? There’s... oh my..” She touched her lips and looked at her fingers. They were frosting up. “Muy.. Muy liphss arre ...” She reached for him once more only to stop in mid motion. The stunned look was frozen on her face as she stopped moving as first frost then ice moved across her body from her head and fingers. He watched her freeze and when only when she was done did he move towards her. 

“See what your feelings brought you.” He tapped her head without caring if she could feel it or not. “You always went with your heart over your head. Now I must go find a cure for both of us. If I can’t then I will find revenge for those that brought this upon us.” He picked up the coin/badge and looked at it. The two bodies were obviously the former Lord Thomas Wayne Jr. and the paladin Harvey Dent; two of the Wayne family’s best warriors and heros. For them to be combined this way meant that they must have been trying to make some sort of super soldier project. 

The only person that he could deduce would do something like that would be Crow. He must have created him to fight against the Jester. The fact that he had attacked them as soon as they started moving meant that the experiment must have been a failure. If he had been sent here, then they must had been discarded here as well. It was only logical to deduce that the danger to Gotham, and Wayne Keep was the reason that they were sent here. If they had disposed of all of them here then Lord Wayne had tried to effectively kill them. Logically if Lord Wayne meant to kill them then he was one of the people that he needed to seek revenge against.

He looked at the statue of a woman that his wife had become. His heart only felt the burning need to cure them, and avenge her. Her heart had felt love and compassion, and had even asked for him to spare the lives of the creature that had tried to kill them. He could no longer be held back by such weaknesses. He would have to go back as a new person, the old doctor was gone. He would let go of the connections to his old life. No more would he be Mr. Freeze, he would need to be the Iceman. He looked at his hand and ice formed armor around his fist and then up his arm. Soon he was covered in elemental ice armor. He walked over to where the scrying mirror and the rest of the lab’s remains were buried. A gesture and the ice retreated to reveal the mirror and the rest of his equipment. He pushed the ice as far back as he could and found the boundary of the area that had been shifted to the elemental plane of ice. Well then, he had work to do. The first thing to do was build a portal. The second was to find Lord Wayne, and if they didn’t give him the cure he would turn Gotham into a winter wasteland. “The Iceman cometh!”

 

To be continued in “Cold Forged”


End file.
